Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Why do airlines still use "black boxes" ?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 93 posts

Re: Ask HN: Why do airlines still use "black boxes" ?

#21

Post by kgrin »

simplegeek wrote: post #16

Good question. Likewise, I've always wondered why don't they have parachutes in aeroplanes :(

Because unless most passengers are actually trained in how to use them, it wouldn't do much good; plus, for most reasonably sized planes, there simply wouldn't be enough time for anyone to jump with a chute.

Re: Ask HN: Why do airlines still use "black boxes" ?

#22

Post by asciilifeform »

cstejerean wrote: post #20
simplegeek wrote: post #16

Good question. Likewise, I've always wondered why don't they have parachutes in aeroplanes :(

Probably because the majority of passengers are not trained to operate a parachute, attempting to jump out of a plane at 40,000 ft is likely to be lethal even with a parachute, and that having 200+ people orderly jump out of a plane with parachutes while the plane is crashing out of control is unlikely to work.

A more interesting question is why one is not permitted to bring a parachute on board at one's own expense, and why there are not even token provisions for enabling their use in a situation where they might be helpful.

Air travel phobia seems to be rooted in the lack of control experienced by the passenger - specifically, in the anticipation of utter helplessness in the event of a crash. A parachute would help with that, even if its role is largely ceremonial.

Re: Ask HN: Why do airlines still use "black boxes" ?

#23

Post by dcurtis »

anigbrowl wrote: post #2

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.

Re: Ask HN: Why do airlines still use "black boxes" ?

#24

Post by timr »

dmv wrote: post #12
Sephr wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

or you are flying through an electrical storm...

Yep. Commercial airliners already have a number of redundant power sources, located in different parts of the plane, wired in different pathways for maximum operational redundancy. There were even studies to done to find the parts of a jet that are least affected by eddy currents due to electrical storms....yet the black box can operate even when those different redundant systems fail.

Re: Ask HN: Why do airlines still use "black boxes" ?

#30

Post by marcusbooster »

dcurtis wrote: post #23
anigbrowl wrote: post #2

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.

You have to re-construct the flight before things go wrong to know when things went wrong. Maybe something you thought was right turned out to be an error given a different parameter. Kinda like debugging I guess.
Post reply on HN