51–60 of 93 posts
Why don't they make black boxes floatable?
I suspect that a floating object increase the range over which you have to search. If you object sinks to the bottom, at least you know about where it ended up.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Strangely chutes on planes might be worth it, but maybe not like you think. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_Recovery_Systems
This is an intriguing idea, has anybody heard of any research done for this regarding passenger airplanes?
There 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.
There's also a practicality argument: when a plane is flying along normally, you don't need consistent satellite information - you've got radio communication, radio data-links, and controllers watching. So the usefulness of a satellite uplink only comes when something is not right with the plane.
If we're in that situation - that there's something wrong enough with the plane that you'd want to know about it via the uplink - what makes you think the uplink will still be working? Air planes are designed with huge levels of redundancy and overengineered margins: are you going to take all that, double it, and then put it into a satellite transmitter (which probably won't have that much data to send anyways if the plane is in that state)?
So no, I don't think we need constant satellite uplinks. Black boxes (especially ones of the newer generation) are very well-engineered, and the NTSB guys are masters at getting things off broken ones.
Why don't they make black boxes floatable?
Flight recorders, along with being incredibly durable, are also incredibly heavy. It would be difficult to provide a remotely reliable method of having the device float.
From : 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…
You only have to transmit data when something is wrong. You can use software to determine when to start sending updates.
Good question. Likewise, I've always wondered why don't they have parachutes in aeroplanes :(
The idea of a distributed network among commercial aircraft and ground stations as a method of transmitting the data also seems like an exciting prospect, and perhaps less expensive than relying on satellite communications, though I know nothing of the range or viability of such a platform.
In any case, a system to complement a black box would require large expenditures by governments and airlines. But, how valuable is that data? Pretty valuable, I think.
How is the data stored in the black box? Solid state?