How crap are these flight data recorders?

[Arthritic Toe]

Given today's technology, how hard is it to but a battery in it that lasts for more than 30 days? And now we hear that the cockpit voice recorder is only capable of holding the final 2 hours of conversation, thereby rendering it useless if the plane flew on for 6 hours with an unconscious crew. You can buy an SD card in Tesco's for 10 quid that would hold all you need for the entire flight. Have Boeing been asleep for the last 40 years? They seem to be using 1970's technology.

 

[beorhthelm]

Given today's technology, how hard is it to but a battery in it that lasts for more than 30 days?

quite hard. theres a balance between capability and reliability to be struck. no use having cheap SD cards if they dont work 1% of the time. the flight recoder needs to work 100% over many times to cover 1 incident in tens of thousands of flight hours. the length of recording is down to requirments not technology, someone decided that you wouldnt need longer. i wouldnt be surprised that in whatever committe decided, some voiced that 2 hours was excessive, i expect the only relevent information from problems comes in the last few minutes for 99.99% of incidents.

 

[somerset]

Given today's technology, how hard is it to but a battery in it that lasts for more than 30 days? And now we hear that the cockpit voice recorder is only capable of holding the final 2 hours of conversation, thereby rendering it useless if the plane flew on for 6 hours with an unconscious crew. You can buy an SD card in Tesco's for 10 quid that would hold all you need for the entire flight. Have Boeing been asleep for the last 40 years? They seem to be using 1970's technology.

Most planes don't crash thousands of miles from anywhere, thousands of miles from where they should be.....these are extreme circumstances.

 

[Arthritic Toe]

Most planes don't crash thousands of miles from anywhere, thousands of miles from where they should be.....these are extreme circumstances.

Yes but this one did and its the difficult ones you need to design for. My point is that the technology is readily available and they don't seem to be using it. For example, they could be transmitting the information via satellite to a central server giving pinpoint gps position to within a few feet instead of relying on simple machines onboard which sink with the plane.

 

[Fungus]

The plane in question is early-mid 1990s technology, so its technological abilities will reflect that.

I suspect it would (should) have been through several upgrades in the last 20 years.

 

[Leighgull]

More interestingly how come the Chinese picked up "pings" (no jokes about Ping being the surname of 90% of the passengers please) 370 miles away from the pings detected by the Aussies. I thought the radius for detection was about 40 miles? What's going on with that? Also...surely it is impossible to fly a jumbo jet to within 200 miles of Australian airspace completely undetected. It's all to mental.
,

When do the batteries on the FDR run out? I believe it was yesterday?

 

[JCL666]

Yes but this one did and its the difficult ones you need to design for. My point is that the technology is readily available and they don't seem to be using it. For example, they could be transmitting the information via satellite to a central server giving pinpoint gps position to within a few feet instead of relying on simple machines onboard which sink with the plane.

Aircraft do transmit their location. They use ACARS. According to the news reports, it's believed that the ACARS system on board the missing plane had been manually switched off. The secondary system which is only used to keep the satellite connection alive had been used to narrow down the search area, but that's hard to do as it doesn't send a message continually.


As for the battery thing. Every airline looks to reduce as much weight as possible on an aircraft, no matter how insignificant it may seem. They also won't change anything unless the air authority that gives them permission to operate forces them to change it. Mainly because to replace the type of battery in every recorder for a fleet of aircraft, will actually mean replacing the thing that uses the battery, and then they'd have to change the connection to the things it's recording etc etc. With most of this kit the items are specially made and not interchangeable. So in short, it costs a lot of money and will impact as each aircraft would have to be rotated out of service in order to fit the new thing. Airlines hate that.

I think you'd be surprised at the lack of modern technology in aircraft. Most planes in service still carry maps, and the crew will record incidents in a ............... book!!

 

[Leighgull]

Aircraft do transmit their location. They use ACARS. According to the news reports, it's believed that the ACARS system on board the missing plane had been manually switched off. The secondary system which is only used to keep the satellite connection alive had been used to narrow down the search area, but that's hard to do as it doesn't send a message continuallyb.

Eastthen...chage the book for a waterproofed 4g Ipad

As for the battery thing. Every airline looks to reduce as much weight as possible on an aircraft, no matter how insignificant it may seem. They also won't change anything unless the air authority that gives them permission to operate forces them to change it. Mainly because to replace the type of battery in every recorder for a fleet of aircraft, will actually mean replacing the thing that uses the battery, and then they'd have to change the connection to the things it's recording etc etc. With most of this kit the items are specially made and not interchangeable. So in short, it costs a lot of money and will impact as each aircraft would have to be rotated out of service in order to fit the new thing. Airlines hate that.

I think you'd be surprised at the lack of modern technology in aircraft. Most planes in service still carry maps, and the crew will record incidents in a ............... book!!

Change the book for a waterproofed 4g ipad. Job done.

 

[beorhthelm]

Also...surely it is impossible to fly a jumbo jet to within 200 miles of Australian airspace completely undetected. It's all to mental.

probably is, but they are looking 2000 miles off the coast, not 200.

 

[Leighgull]

probably is, but they are looking 2000 miles off the coast, not 200.

Must read telegraph onlie more rigouroisly.

Edit..just did. Its not ebout the distance from mainland its distance from airspace.

 

[Arthritic Toe]

...

I think you'd be surprised at the lack of modern technology in aircraft. Most planes in service still carry maps, and the crew will record incidents in a ............... book!!

Actually I wouldn't. I worked on the RAF Tornado back in the 80's. The systems then were 20 years behind the times. Part of it is that it takes so long to go through rigorous system testing and the the approval cycle for new technology that by the time it makes it into production, it is already obsolete. You'd think data recording systems though wouldn't need to be restricted by that as they don't directly affect the operational safety. I guess the same rules are applied though.

 

[thedonkeycentrehalf]

I'm sure I read somewhere recently that following the Air France crash the other year, newer recorders now have a much longer battery life but this was an older aircraft and hadn't had the upgraded recorder fitted.

 

[Prince Monolulu]

Hope they use Duracell

 

[TrickyOne]

Yes but this one did and its the difficult ones you need to design for. My point is that the technology is readily available and they don't seem to be using it. For example, they could be transmitting the information via satellite to a central server giving pinpoint gps position to within a few feet instead of relying on simple machines onboard which sink with the plane.

Agreed; I heard one specialist commenting that the technology is outdated and that there is a way of recording it all live.

 

[The Buttery Biscuit Base]

My point is that the technology is readily available and they don't seem to be using it.

Is it? Clearly they don't. If it was avaliable, why are they not using it?

 

[Blue3]

Humanity has only ever driven things forward if threatened, hungry or to make life easier none of those reasons applied prior to this disaster now questions are being asked the air craft industry feels threatened and you can be sure changes are on the way

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

And why are they black boxes? Why not paint them a bright colour like orange so they can be more easily seen?

 

[Shropshire Seagull]

And why are they black boxes? Why not paint them a bright colour like orange so they can be more easily seen?

I presume this is fishing, but for the benefit of the thick & stupid, they are orange.

 

[The Buttery Biscuit Base]

And why are they black boxes? Why not paint them a bright colour like orange so they can be more easily seen?

I'm sure if you're being silly, but, they're not black. It's just the name they are given.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I presume this is fishing, but for the benefit of the thick & stupid, they are orange.

View attachment 52632

Oh, so the are painted bright orange after all.