these are first-rate maintained radars by technicians and u.s. military and not unusual that an airplane could evade search radar. yeah. we lost him for a short period of time. this is prolonged over go ahead. yeah. but frankly, it was only lost for a short period of time over there. what we don t know is whether or not the plane really made a left turn after it left malaysian air space and contacted hanoi control. we have a report from an undocumented source from somewhere in malaysia from one radar. frankly, i discount this. you are not believing the data, the guy with the calculation of possibility of where the plane down, you don t believe that? well, i believe it s very difficult. it is not new math. it s a common processing technique, doppler signature. that tower is 23,000 miles up. they fly tangentially to that.
it is amazing the international response to this disaster and this mystery. what about the fact commander marks, that this area now that they will be searching, the currents are not as strong. how might that help with the visual search that many of these people are trying to do from these airplanes? really, it is a matter of the weather getting better. over the past week or so the weather has been extremely challenging. with the ceilings dropping to well under a thousand feet that makes it very difficult to see when you re flying. so the p-8s, they have a number of sensors they can use. and the tactical coordinates in the back will use the optimal ratio of sensors, so for example, they may start out with the search radar. if they get a hit on the radar
it s about three, three and a half hours out there. about a 1500 mile strip and once they are on station they have about three hours search time and then have another 1500 miles or so back and over the course of that flight and on station time, the experts in the back of the plane, you have the pilot and the tactical coordinators in the back they adjust for the environment. so, for example, if it s a clear day they may go 50-50 visual to radar. good. but this search radar is very advanced. it can cut through that clutter. so what you think about in a civilian or commercial aircraft as being bad weather, for us the software tunes that out and we can adjust based on that. yeah, we do have quite a bit of capability. all weather and can search at night using infrared. pretty wide range.
ocean. so that obviously allows you to extend and basically continue working around the clock. it does. we had a p 3 flying throughout the night last night. the p 8 which again is our newest and best patrol aircraft is flying into the theater today. and that will get a few hours during the daytime. but that s the real game changer with their advanced search radar and extremely long-range. i ve heard you describe the shift west as like moving from a chess board to a football field. can you explain that? yeah. i think that s true. you had a relatively defined and relatively small search area in the gulf of thailand. we had 40 ships from 12 international countries, 30 to 40 aircraft. and quite frankly if something was in the gulf of thailand we would have found it. we covered every inch. but what do you do?
ocean. so that obviously allows you to extend and basically continue working around the clock. it does. we had a p 3 flying throughout the night last night. the p 8 which again is our newest and best patrol aircraft is flying into the theater today. and that will get a few hours during the daytime. but that s the real game changer with their advanced search radar and extremely long-range. i ve heard you describe the shift west as like moving from a chess board to a football field. can you explain that? yeah. i think that s true. you had a relatively defined and relatively small search area in the gulf of thailand. we had 40 ships from 12 international countries, 30 to 40 aircraft. and quite frankly if something was in the gulf of thailand we would have found it. we covered every inch. but what do you do?