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The inventor of the black box was told to drop the idea

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Re: The inventor of the black box was told to drop the idea

#31

Post by slipframe »

na85 wrote: post #8
slipframe wrote: post #2

Well if this idea can't survive being dropped, it's not much good is it? Sorry... > Interestingly, modern flight data recorders are required to have an underwater locator beacon that pulses once per second at 37.5 kilohertz for 30 days and is supposed to be detectable at depths of at least 14,000 feet (4,267 meters). But they don’t have comparable beacons for crashes on land. After Japan Airlines Flight 123, that is…

>But they don’t have comparable beacons for crashes on land. Well, they do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_position-indicating_... But the reason you need underwater beacons in particular is that the water absorbs RF signals, so you'll actually use acoustic beacons underwater. Such a device would be useless above the water since air is so much less dense.

From what I understand in America, small airplanes are required to have ELTs/EPIRBs, but airliners are exempt. I don't know why that would be, maybe lobbying.

Re: The inventor of the black box was told to drop the idea

#32

Post by codetrotter »

linspace wrote: post #20
kwdc wrote: post #6

Wow. History hasn't been kind. As is often the case around limited-mindset thinking. From TFA: "civil authorities said that “Dr Warren’s instrument has little immediate direct use in civil aircraft.” The Royal Australian Air Force likewise decided that “such a device is not required—the recorder would yield more expletives than explanations.” Well. No. Multiple air crashes across the world relied on recordings as a k…

I guess one possible explanation is that having a black box in your plane is not useful to you, only for other people after you die. Pushing for the idea requires accepting you are going to screw up and some people will think that your job is preventing the airplane from crashing in the first place. It's obviously useful in the long term from a societal perspective, not from a short-term and individual point of view.

Even then I don’t get why someone would object. But of course hindsight is 20/20 so that may be why. Having a black box in all aircraft would help me too, because other crashes are better understood. Then again I also do want my death to be maximally useful to others should I die, so that at least I don’t die completely in vain. I don’t want to live forever, but I don’t want my life to end abruptly and outside of my control either, and I have plenty of things I want to do still before I leave. So that may also be why I don’t understand that POV you suggested.

Also, if I was a pilot, I would appreciate the fact that the black box can potentially help my friends and family get closure, because if the black box survives then my friends and family can learn what happened that caused the crash.

Re: The inventor of the black box was told to drop the idea

#33

Post by robertlagrant »

Inventor: this is my indestructible black box for recording aircraft crashes.

Reviewer: drop it.

Inventor: this is a safety feature that will allow us to iterate plane design and save thousands of lives in the future!

Reviewer: drop it.

Inventor: this is extremely important for the future of aviation!

Reviewer: drop it.

Inventor: I WILL NOT storms off

Reviewer: I just meant...show that it won't break? Never mind.

Re: The inventor of the black box was told to drop the idea

#35

Post by FooHentai »

slipframe wrote: post #31
na85 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But they don’t have comparable beacons for crashes on land. Well, they do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_position-indicating_... But the reason you need underwater beacons in particular is that the water absorbs RF signals, so you'll actually use acoustic beacons underwater. Such a device would be useless above the water since air is so much less dense.

From what I understand in America, small airplanes are required to have ELTs/EPIRBs, but airliners are exempt. I don't know why that would be, maybe lobbying.

Possibly their size means they're remote trackable (e.g. radar) already by gov/military when over or near land. This may not be the case with small aircraft.

Total guess, of course.

Re: The inventor of the black box was told to drop the idea

#37

Post by nickthemagicman »

kwdc wrote: post #6

Wow. History hasn't been kind. As is often the case around limited-mindset thinking. From TFA: "civil authorities said that “Dr Warren’s instrument has little immediate direct use in civil aircraft.” The Royal Australian Air Force likewise decided that “such a device is not required—the recorder would yield more expletives than explanations.” Well. No. Multiple air crashes across the world relied on recordings as a k…

Are these the 'trust the experts' everyone was talking about during Covid?

Re: The inventor of the black box was told to drop the idea

#39

Post by WalterBright »

I've watched all the episodes of Aviation Disasters. The device missing from cockpits is the video recorder. Many investigations revolve around questions like what is the pilot looking at, what the instruments show, even who the heck is in the pilot's seat. Video can confirm switch settings and instrument readouts (the voice recorder is also used to confirm if the warning horns sounded properly).

Instead, a lot of effort goes into trying to reconstruct this.

Just put a dang video camera in the cockpit.

I've also, for decades, advocated a camera that records flight operations at an airport. Just stick a couple in the tower pointed at the runways. Note that in the Concorde disaster, there was no video of the take-off. They had to rely on eyewitness testimony, which is notoriously unreliable. The only video came later from some passenger in a car who happened to have a video cam at hand. That accidental video proved valuable. (It's a horrifying video.)

I was surprised at all the vitriol opposition to pointing a camera at the runways. People confidently told me it would cost millions of dollars, and was completely infeasible. Jeez, anyone could buy a security camera that recorded on a loop for a few hundred. Every convenience store had them.

Re: The inventor of the black box was told to drop the idea

#40

Post by stanpinte »

linspace wrote: post #20
kwdc wrote: post #6

Wow. History hasn't been kind. As is often the case around limited-mindset thinking. From TFA: "civil authorities said that “Dr Warren’s instrument has little immediate direct use in civil aircraft.” The Royal Australian Air Force likewise decided that “such a device is not required—the recorder would yield more expletives than explanations.” Well. No. Multiple air crashes across the world relied on recordings as a k…

I guess one possible explanation is that having a black box in your plane is not useful to you, only for other people after you die. Pushing for the idea requires accepting you are going to screw up and some people will think that your job is preventing the airplane from crashing in the first place. It's obviously useful in the long term from a societal perspective, not from a short-term and individual point of view.

I think pilot must have known that the information in the back box would provide them heaps of data on how to prevent crashes, to their benefits. My guess is that is was not opposed by average pilots, but by people in power above or around or among pilots, whose power would be undercut by any new idea.
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