delusionofgrandeur

The Large Model Association’s annual air show took place on the 19th-20th of July this year and saw an impressive collection of large radio-control model aircraft - some of which, despite the inclement weather flew before the crowds.

These pictures are kindly provided by Chris Neal.

Parts 2 can be found here

Tags: avro anson, avro lancaster, avro vulcan, c130, cosford, large model airshow, lightning, thunderbolt

As much for the benefit of my own memory as for yours, I briefly detail here the drum counter reset procedure for the Brother HL 5030 laser printer (and probably most of the HL 5xxx range).

The HL 5030 has an internal counter which basically registers pages printed (apparently with weighting for cold and hot starts). This counter can be reset when replacing a drum or if you just want to run your existing drum into the ground (the HL 5030 is an older model now).

Counter Reset Procedure.

1. Power on (Drum light should be flashing).
2. Open the toner cartridge access door (big door on the front).
3. Remove the toner cartridge by pulling on it.
4. Reinsert the toner cartridge (give it a good shove).
5. Press and hold the ‘GO’ button for about four seconds. The led indicators should come on one-by-one in amber. Once they are all on, release the ‘GO’ button.
6. Close the toner cartridge access door.

The reset procedure is now complete.

Tags: brother, counter reset, drum, hl 5030, laser printer, service

Russia has engaged Georgian forces on the ground for the first time as the South Ossetia conflict escalates.

Russia has sent tanks into Tskhinvali, the capitol of the South Ossetia region after Georgian forces moved against Ossetian seperatists. Georgian forces have been reported to be shelling the city.

Amid fierce fighting, some sources report up to 1,400 civilians dead, Russia reports 12 of it’s soldiers have died.

Other reports suggest that Russian SU-24 aircraft dropped munitions against a police station in Kareli within Georgian airspace adjacent to the Ossetia region.

Vladimir Putin of Russia is said to have remarked to US President George W Bush that [the] real war in Ossetia has begun.

Update

From press photography and video pertaining to this conflict, I have so far identified Mi-24 Hind Helicopters and Su-25 Frogfoot close air support aircraft in action. It is not immediately clear whether it is Russia or Georgia operating these aircraft.

Tags: bush, georgia, ossetia, putin, russia, seperatists, su24, war

The Times online has news that Dutch security researcher Jeroen van Beek has demonstrated a method to digitally clone, copy and alter a British biometric passport.

The first revelation is that the ’strong encryption’ of the British biometric passport has been cracked. Perhaps it’s not such a huge revelation as I recall hearing the Dutch chip passports had been cracked and those would presumably have to use the same internationally-accepted standard for encryption.

He was then able to take a chipped passport, copy the data from it (in this case the biometric data for a child), change the digitally stored photograph for one of Osama bin Laden and then upload the data again, even generating a new key signature to match the data stored.

The vulnerability of the ‘chipped’ passports seems exceptionally serious when combined with work by Peter Gutmann, from Auckland University, New Zealand. Normally, the changed data on the chipped passport along with it’s new signing key would fail to match with the key found on a centralised database. Mr Gutmann’s work allowed a second, correct key to be stored on the passport thereby allowing the passport to be authenticated.

The only final way in which this method of creating a counterfeit passport can be avoided is if the security agent actually checks the full biometric data as downloaded from the chip against the full data retrieved from the centralised database (We’ll assume the centralised database isn’t being compromised as part of a concerted effort for the purposes of this discussion). The problem here is that of the 45 countries to sign-up for the public key directory, only 5 have implemented it. Naturally, the Gutmann work neatly circumvents the PKD and the final backstop of manual comparison relies on access to the database holding the original.

The Times article points out that a prospective criminal would need fake passport material to implant the chips on (a fairly trivial matter with modern technology). This, however, should be no problem in the short term as 3,000 blank British biometric passports were stolen last week.

In a world where it is alleged that airport security personelle aren’t even checking signatures, it looks like identity fraud has just become both easier and far more complete.

Tags: altered, biometric passport, british, cloned, copied, Dutch, fraud, identity theft, Jeroen van Beek, peter gutmann, security

It was reported on a few sources over the last few days that the Chinese authorities are preparing for ‘anything’ at the Beijing Olympics and have fielded Surface to Air Missile (SAM) systems around the Olympic stadium.

Photographs and videos have clearly shown what appears to be HQ-7 short-range infrared homing missile launchers emplaced around the ‘Bird’s Nest’ stadium. I can only really guess from the photos and footage at the distance from the stadium but my estimate would be that they are less than 1km (0.62 miles) away. Each SAM site (common wisdom would say there should be more than one, some sources indicate there are two) is deployed on a trailer with a separate search radar. Some minor effort has been made to provide camouflage but unfortunately the launchers stick out like a sore-thumb against the surrounding concrete structures.

The HQ-7 search radar has an 18km (11.18 mile) range and provides target designation for the HQ-7’s fire-control systems. The HQ-7 launcher itself can begin J-band radar tracking at 17km (10.5 miles) and optical tracking at 15km (9.3 miles). Whether the optical tracking would be useful through Beijing’s infamous ’smog’ I do not know.

Maximum firing range for most aircraft targets is about 8.6km (5.3 miles) so this really is just beyond the scope of close-in weapon systems.

The deployment of the HQ-7 SAMs, in itself a ‘battlefield’ weapon, with the confines of a city does raise a question or two about public safety and purpose. Are the possible targets hijacked airliners or actual military aircraft (from whatever source) ? Whatever sort of aircraft were to be engaged, at 5-6 miles from the stadium, according to Google Maps, the incoming target would fall in densely-populated suburbs. The amount of collateral damage would presumably be a function of the size of the destroyed target. I presume the Chinese authorities view the loss of a up to a couple of ‘city blocks’ as acceptable when weighed against the security of the Olympic site.

Then there is a question of safety of operation of the SAM site itself. The E/F-band search radar rotates continuously and will be powered at all times when active. While radiated power attenuates with the distance from the radar, television news sources showed the public walking within a few meters of the search radars. An actual engagement would increase the danger in the immediate area many times. I’m not sure how the tube-launcher end-caps are removed but it could well be pyrotechnic. The HQ-7 missile’s solid motor then fires and propels the missile to Mach-2+ in just a couple of seconds. Although I couldn’t find a HQ-7 launch video, one would assume the flame/efflux from the missile in the vicinity of the launch platform would be considerable.

Whatever China’s reasoning for these sort-range SAM sites is, it is to be hoped that they are never used from their current emplacements.

Tags: anti aircraft, beijing olympics, birds nest, china, hq-7, pla, sam site, surface to air missile

A Qantas Airlines Boeing 747 departing Hong Kong for Australia today suffered a rapid or explosive decompression at altitude and was forced to make an emergency descent followed by an emergency landing at Manila in the Philippines. All passengers and crew departed the aircraft safely.

There were a total of 346 passengers and 19 crew on board the aircraft when a section just forward of the starboard mainwing leading edge despressurised the hull. The crew apparently then initiated an emergency descent, oxygen masks being dropped for the passengers. The emergency descent is made in order to reach a safe altitude at which it is possible to breathe normally without oxygen assistance.

The aircraft then made a declared emergency landing at Manila in the Phillipines where the extent of the damage was photographed by news agencies. It appears from photographs that the front-most part of the fusealage ‘blister’ which blends the starboard wing-root is completely missing with a smaller hole through the pressure hull into the baggage compartment. Some debris is evident in the hole looking rather like loose items of luggage. It is probably fair to speculate that some passengers may find they are missing some items.

Some interviewed passengers recall the captain stating that there was a hole in a ‘door’. As far as I know, there isn’t a door at this section of the fuselage but there appears to be creasing near the foremost edge of the cabin exit door above the damaged area. This may have lead to a ‘door open’ alert on the flight deck. It is possibly worth noting that this door is entirely distinct from the large R5 cargo door which separated from United Airlines flight 811.

Aircraft Identity (This is not definitive information, do not treat it as such!)

Some of the pictures show the letters on the nose gear door to be ‘JK’. On Qantas aircraft this appears to be the last two letters of the aircraft registration for the purpose of identification while parked on the apron. If this is the case, this would indicate that the aircraft is VH-OJK, a Boeing 747-438, construction number 25067 built 1991. [Source]

Flight Number

The flight number is now being widely reported as QF30

Media Response

I actually found some quite responsible, restrained media reporting at the BBC online website. BBC television news was, however, it’s usual irresponsible self with a presenter trying to lead an interviewee into relating a story which did not exist. It is fair to say that pretty much everyone the including crew would be scared, you’d be inhuman not to be, but there was no real evidence of ‘panic’ or ‘terror’ as some news outlets would have you believe by their headlines. During the descent into Manila, as evidenced by video shot by a passenger, people remained relatively calm. The BBC quotes one passenger:

“Everyone was fairly calm, partly because they didn’t realise the extent of it,”

France 24 probably gets my award as the least sensational reporters (as of this time) as, despite having a rather short article, they just relate the facts as they were known and nothing else.

Tags: 747-438, australia, depressurisation, emergency landing, hong-kong, manila, phillipines, qantas 747, qf30, vh-ojk