Reading Wikipedia, David Warren died in 2010, and his coffin was labelled "FLIGHT RECORDER INVENTOR DO NOT OPEN". Nice.
The inventor of the black box was told to drop the idea
61–70 of 114 posts
Re: The inventor of the black box was told to drop the idea
#62I'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 ef…
Couple of issues here; the first and foremost - recording people at their workplace. We can all argue how privacy is unreasonable in public but recording let alone pilots but anyone continuously at work will receive big pushback. Also video occupies much more data than most other streams of information stored on blackbox. This coupled with the fact that anything aviation related takes decades to get into widespread u…
> recording let alone pilots but anyone continuously at work will receive big pushback
I think we can say that when you have hundreds of people's lives in your hands you are accepting a higher level of oversight and invasion of privacy.
The same reason some people in some careers have to go through deeply invasive background checks.
Re: The inventor of the black box was told to drop the idea
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I was a pilot I'd hate to be constantly surveilled by a camera, even if the footage is "never reviewed". In fact, it's got nothing to do with being a pilot.
Don't buy a Tesla then. They have cameras pointing at you and recording while driving.
So do taxis, and any other car with driver assistance (though those don't save the video, they just watch if your hands are on the wheel.)
Re: The inventor of the black box was told to drop the idea
#64I'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 ef…
I have no doubt that it would cost millions. If it's important enough to do, it's important enough to spend extra on a (supposedly) reliable and secure system with some massive 24/7 maintenance contract. Unlike convenience store cameras that can just use off-the-shelf products and still deter criminals by just being there even when broken.
Re: The inventor of the black box was told to drop the idea
#65The last sentences about uploading data to the cloud had not struck me before. It is such an obvious development, if not to replace so to complement. But perhaps there are challenges around it that are not obvious?
A plane more often has access to an atmospheric cloud than to a computing cloud, especially when flying over an ocean. Maybe Starlink could offer reasonable connectivity, even if intermittent.
Re: The inventor of the black box was told to drop the idea
#66I'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 ef…
Couple of issues here; the first and foremost - recording people at their workplace. We can all argue how privacy is unreasonable in public but recording let alone pilots but anyone continuously at work will receive big pushback. Also video occupies much more data than most other streams of information stored on blackbox. This coupled with the fact that anything aviation related takes decades to get into widespread u…
There isn't an inch in Taipei that doesn't have a CCTV on it.
In the US I see cameras at every gas station, donut shop, drug store, liquor store, and lab I go into. None of these places are as high stakes or high security as an airport.
Re: The inventor of the black box was told to drop the idea
#67I'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 ef…
Couple of issues here; the first and foremost - recording people at their workplace. We can all argue how privacy is unreasonable in public but recording let alone pilots but anyone continuously at work will receive big pushback. Also video occupies much more data than most other streams of information stored on blackbox. This coupled with the fact that anything aviation related takes decades to get into widespread u…
We record bus drivers, for goodness' sake. We should be able to record pilots.
I agree that a hardened process relying on multiple SSD (that are then uploaded and wiped after landing at an airport) would be a good technical direction.
Re: The inventor of the black box was told to drop the idea
#68It kind of makes sense. If you had a high stakes job (human life, say a surgeon) and your boss wanted to record your every action, what would you think?
I think the FAA’s approach of “we do accident investigations so we learn, not to blame” went pretty far in making the idea more acceptable.
Re: The inventor of the black box was told to drop the idea
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
What they might learn is that the crash was your fault. It isn't clear that's the legacy you'd really want to have.
Re: The inventor of the black box was told to drop the idea
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I was a pilot I'd hate to be constantly surveilled by a camera, even if the footage is "never reviewed". In fact, it's got nothing to do with being a pilot.
Don't buy a Tesla then. They have cameras pointing at you and recording while driving.
> Don't buy a Tesla then
Way ahead of you on that one.