The inventor of the black box was told to drop the idea • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by RogerL » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 6:27 AM UTC

zeusk wrote: post #41

WalterBright wrote: post #39

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 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…

> 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.

Casinos do it. Banks do it. Convenience stores do it. The TSA records it's workers and you when you go through security. This doesn't seem like much of a hurdle.

For example: https://www.jwincorporated.com/projects/ohare-international-...

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

#112

Post by RogerL » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 6:34 AM UTC

josefx wrote: post #77

WalterBright wrote: post #39

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 ef…

> Jeez, anyone could buy a security camera that recorded on a loop for a few hundred. It probably isn't that easy, at least for the runways. Remember that Uber crash where they tried to convince everyone that the cyclist was near impossible to see? The dash cam used to record that video was standard, but also completely unable to handle even a well lit road at night. Good cameras and the weather proofing they need ou…

These cameras are everywhere. I've been doing this stuff in one way or another since 2008 or so. Did it for the Air Force (mounted on the tower) and for more commercial applications. It's a solved problem, and it is not particularly expensive.

Surely you've seen CCTV or other cameras in an outdoor enclosure before? You are being tracked from parking lot to boarding in some airports. We can put a few cameras up to watch the runways and taxiways.

https://airportimprovement.com/article/new-camera-system-ena...

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

#113

Post by wolrah » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 4:22 PM UTC

zeusk wrote: post #106

WalterBright wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BTW, I can buy a dashcam for $100 that records HD in a loop and plugs into a cigarette lighter. I'm not buying there's any technical or cost issue with installing one in the cockpit. I will buy that the problems are all bureaucratic in nature. Just make a secure bracket for it, and a 12V feed.

If you have that to add, I am pretty sure you don't have any formal experience with aviation. Even the nuts and bolts that go on aircraft can cost >$100. The problems are not all bureaucratic, and I get HN's hate of bureaucracy but for life-and-death matters - I'd rather default to caution than move fast and break necks attitude of SV/Tech. Just to give you an example, lookup the swissair in-flight entertainment fire…

> Just to give you an example, lookup the swissair in-flight entertainment fire incident. Tacking couple of screens and media server onto an existing plane should be fine right? turns out not really and 215 people paid the price of that decision with their lives.

I'm not super familiar with this one, but based on a quick skim of the TSB report (http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/aviation/1998/a98h...) it looks like the issue here was not the IFE itself but a poor installation that significantly differed from the certified configuration and resulted in chafing on power wires.

It's also worth noting that this happened in the '90s when networked personal IFE systems were still in their infancy. It's 2021, there are no unsolved problems in installing a few cameras in an aircraft. A lot of them already have cameras accessible through the IFE, putting one more in the cockpit and a hardened DVR in the back isn't exactly rocket science.

Yes, aviation stuff often has a few zeroes added on to the price tag for good and bad reasons, but we're basically talking about a dashcam here. Low triple digit prices for non-aviation hardware, so even if you multiply the price times 100 it's still not really significant compared to the cost of an airliner.

There are no good technical reasons to not have video.

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

#114

Post by rabeener » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 2:12 AM UTC

zeusk wrote: post #41

WalterBright wrote: post #39

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 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…

You’re arguing against monitoring equipment in the cockpit in an article that’s about people arguing against monitoring equipment in the cockpit. Thanks for making me laugh today. I appreciate you.