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Again, that assumes whatever possible fault in the airspeed indicator was present when the ship was released. It might not have been. We just don't have enough information to say.
originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: nataylor
It could be, but then it still would be human error that they didn't see it. They should have been coordinating with the launch aircraft for release speeds, and noticed the disparity between the speed showing, and the speed being told them.
There are all kinds of failure mechanisms that could have happened. It could have been as simple as vibration causing the airspeed dial to misread. If that were the case, any transmitted telemetry would have shown the correct airspeed. Point is, we don't know. It's to early to determine a cause and we certainly don't have all the information to come to a conclusion on the cause.
originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: nataylor
Airspeed indicators are pretty bulletproof at this point, even for this thing. They generally don't suddenly develop a fault, barring icing. They also had a backup on the ground with the telemetry I'm sure. I'd be shocked if it was an airspeed fault that suddenly developed for no obvious reason like icing.
But if it WAS a bad indication then they wouldn't have been able to say he unlocked them at Mach 1, they would have thought that he deployed them at the normal speed. So the evidence that we have now is that it was reading right, and was unlocked early, which was human error.