Why not substitute a real-time satellite uplink? This would eliminate the need for expensive and often unsuccessful oceanic search expeditions of the kind we are now hearing about.
Ask HN: Why do airlines still use "black boxes" ?
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Re: Ask HN: Why do airlines still use "black boxes" ?
#2From : http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=246491&page=1
Again, any single box is not the problem. It's the receiving end. Picture the FAA receiving 8000 planes worth of a minimum of 88 data streams at 50 Hz at 12 bytes each. That would be a minimum of about 4 Gbps data stream, and allowing for collisions and whatnot, you're around 20 Gbps datastream capacity.
Guess where the hackers are going to concentrate their efforts. And given the large number of access points required to make that all happen, guess how often the database will be compromised.
Re: Ask HN: Why do airlines still use "black boxes" ?
#3There is constant data sent out by most aircraft already. The black box is for when shit goes very wrong, like when a plane is on fire, out of power, with a big hole in it, falling like a rock and spinning like a top.
Re: Ask HN: Why do airlines still use "black boxes" ?
#4The cost in retrieving the black box is the least of worries, don't you think?
Re: Ask HN: Why do airlines still use "black boxes" ?
#5From : http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=246491&page=1 Again, any single box is not the problem. It's the receiving end. Picture the FAA receiving 8000 planes worth of a minimum of 88 data streams at 50 Hz at 12 bytes each. That would be a minimum of about 4 Gbps data stream, and allowing for collisions and whatnot, you're around 20 Gbps datastream capacity. Guess where the hackers are going to concentrate t…
Sounds like a job for some kind of distributed peer-to-peer (or is that air-to-air?) network. A bittorrent of the skies.
Re: Ask HN: Why do airlines still use "black boxes" ?
#6The new planes like this Airbus do actually transmit real-time maintenance data. So, there were something like 10 transmissions from the plane that apparently include large amounts of data regarding the systems that were failing and when.
Re: Ask HN: Why do airlines still use "black boxes" ?
#7There is constant data sent out by most aircraft already. The black box is for when shit goes very wrong, like when a plane is on fire, out of power, with a big hole in it, falling like a rock and spinning like a top.
The black box is sufficiently rugged to survive anything short of a nuclear blast, including fire, crash, and falling to the bottom of the ocean. Real time broadcast telemetry might be the first to go in some instances, black boxes are certainly the last.
Addition: the NTSB is expert at retrieving data from severely damaged black boxes.
Re: Ask HN: Why do airlines still use "black boxes" ?
#8There is constant data sent out by most aircraft already. The black box is for when shit goes very wrong, like when a plane is on fire, out of power, with a big hole in it, falling like a rock and spinning like a top.
I still don't see why only a black box should be used for that. As long as a satellite uplink is powered by a separate external power source, none of these factors will stop a transmission.
Re: Ask HN: Why do airlines still use "black boxes" ?
#9From : http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=246491&page=1 Again, any single box is not the problem. It's the receiving end. Picture the FAA receiving 8000 planes worth of a minimum of 88 data streams at 50 Hz at 12 bytes each. That would be a minimum of about 4 Gbps data stream, and allowing for collisions and whatnot, you're around 20 Gbps datastream capacity. Guess where the hackers are going to concentrate t…
If a plane travels over mainland, it would be no problem to store data only on the black box, as it would be easy to recover in an accident. We would have to enable the satellite uplink only on planes crossing the oceans. I don't think that would generate that much of data.
Re: Ask HN: Why do airlines still use "black boxes" ?
#10Cause black goes with everything.