Discussion:
Black Box Recovery - Why Not Transmit?
(too old to reply)
Scott M. Kozel
2009-06-20 18:22:08 UTC
Permalink
From: "John Gilmer" <***@localnet.com>
Newsgroups: alt.disasters.aviation
Subject: Re: Black Box Recovery - Why Not Transmit?
Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 00:11:18 -0400
If this has been addressed before I apologize. With all the
sophisticated electronics on a plane, can't the black box data just be
transmitted as it's occurring to a central processing station?
Wouldn't this be a viable solution to investigate crashes, and allow
new safety measures to be put in place faster? Why can't something
like this be implemented? Isn't the data digital? If not, could it be?
It would seem an easier, faster, more efficient method than all the
time and manpower and expense needed to find these black boxes.
As electronics advances this could very soon be possible, if it's not
already. However, stop for a minute and consider the 10s of thousands of
aircraft airborne at any given moment in time. You are talking about a
*lot* of data. Data that no one cares about, except in extremely rare
circumstances.
1) To an approximation, the A/C was transmitting data to the home base.
That's the primary basis of what the guesses about what happened are about.

2) Since customers enjoy (and are willing to pay for) telephone and
internet services while in flight, there is the potential of having plenty
of bandwidth available to "maintenance." Data storage is cheap and
getting cheaper so at least a "data summary" can be kept 'just in case.'
There is a "privacy" question as to whether cockpit voice should be
automatically "phoned home."

3) It's clear from this accident that the whole issue of the "black
boxes" should be re-visited. First, how should the data recorder be
protected/packaged/and "beeped." What should be monitored? Should
the data be "processed" before being stored? When consumers routinely
store an hour of video on an inexpensive 'chip', the 'technology' of the
black boxes looks that something from a century ago.
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DevilsPGD
2009-06-22 01:27:42 UTC
Permalink
Post by Scott M. Kozel
2) Since customers enjoy (and are willing to pay for) telephone and
internet services while in flight, there is the potential of having plenty
of bandwidth available to "maintenance." Data storage is cheap and
getting cheaper so at least a "data summary" can be kept 'just in case.'
Storage is a non-issue, you only need to keep blackbox data for a short
amount of time.
Post by Scott M. Kozel
There is a "privacy" question as to whether cockpit voice should be
automatically "phoned home."
How so? The pilots are on duty, and as a result it's not unheard of for
them to be monitored. If there are any serious concerns about this, a
rule could be established preventing blackbox data from being accessed
except in case of an emergency event either as a matter of policy or
law.
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