Flight recorder

The device may often be referred to colloquially as a "black box", an outdated name which has become a misnomer—they are now required to be painted bright orange, to aid in their recovery after accidents.After the unexplained disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in 2014, commentators have called for live streaming of data to the ground, as well as extending the battery life of the underwater locator beacons.The latent image was made by a thin ray of light deviated by a mirror tilted according to the magnitude of the data to be recorded (altitude, speed, etc.).The advantage of the film technology was that it could be easily developed afterwards and provides a durable, visual feedback of the flight parameters without needing any playback device.This black high-tech mechanical box was able to record all required data during test flights of fighter aircraft that the Finnish Air Force repaired or built in its main aviation factory in Tampere, Finland.[5] In August 1943 the USAAF conducted an experiment with a magnetic wire recorder to capture the inter-phone conversations of a B-17 bomber flight crew on a combat mission over Nazi-occupied France.[11] Aviation authorities from around the world were largely uninterested at first, but this changed in 1958 when Sir Robert Hardingham, the secretary of the British Air Registration Board, visited the ARL and was introduced to David Warren.The team, consisting of electronics engineers Lane Sear, Wally Boswell, and Ken Fraser, developed a working design that incorporated a fire-resistant and shockproof case, a reliable system for encoding and recording aircraft instrument readings and voice on one wire, and a ground-based decoding device.A "Cockpit Sound Recorder" (CSR) was independently invented and patented by Edmund A. Boniface Jr., an aeronautical engineer at Lockheed Aircraft Corporation.The CSR was an analog device which provided a continuous erasing/recording loop (lasting 30 or more minutes) of all sounds (explosion, voice, and the noise of any aircraft structural components undergoing serious fracture and breakage) which could be overheard in the cockpit."[23] (The term "black box" is used with a different meaning in science and engineering, describing a system exclusively by its inputs and outputs, with no information whatsoever about its inner workings.)Magnetic tape and wire voice recorders had been tested on RAF and USAAF bombers by 1943 thus adding to the assemblage of fielded and experimental electronic devices employed on Allied aircraft.[25] By 1967, when flight recorders were mandated by leading aviation countries, the expression had found its way into general use: "These so-called 'black boxes' are, in fact, of fluorescent flame-orange in colour.Due to their importance in investigating accidents, these ICAO-regulated devices are carefully engineered and constructed to withstand the force of a high speed impact and the heat of an intense fire.Contrary to the popular term "black box", the exterior of the FDR is coated with heat-resistant bright orange paint for high visibility in wreckage, and the unit is usually mounted in the aircraft's tail section, where it is more likely to survive a crash.Following an accident, the recovery of the FDR is usually a high priority for the investigating body, as analysis of the recorded parameters can often detect and identify causes or contributing factors.[citation needed] It is required by regulations that an FDR verification check (readout) is performed annually in order to verify that all mandatory parameters are recorded.Thus, the latest designs employ solid-state memory and use fault tolerant digital recording techniques, making them much more resistant to shock, vibration and moisture.Solid state recorders became commercially practical in 1990, having the advantage of not requiring scheduled maintenance and making the data easier to retrieve.The design of today's FDR is governed by the internationally recognized standards and recommended practices relating to flight recorders which are contained in ICAO Annex 6 which makes reference to industry crashworthiness and fire protection specifications such as those to be found in the European Organisation for Civil Aviation Equipment[45] documents EUROCAE ED55, ED56 Fiken A and ED112 (Minimum Operational Performance Specification for Crash Protected Airborne Recorder Systems).In order to facilitate recovery of the recorder from an aircraft accident site, they are required to be coloured bright yellow or orange with reflective surfaces.[50][51] The United States' first cockpit voice recorder rules were passed in 1964, requiring all turbine and piston aircraft with four or more engines to have CVRs by March 1, 1967.[63][64][65] In the United States, on March 12, 2014, in response to the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, David Price re-introduced the SAFE Act in the US House of Representatives.Considering the advances of modern communication, technology commentators called for flight recorders to be supplemented or replaced by a system that provides "live streaming" of data from the aircraft to the ground.The critical accident data was overwritten by over two hours of post-incident sounds until a maintenance crew could enter the aircraft after the incident and power down the CVR.[74][75] The NTSB has asked for the installation of cockpit image recorders in large transport aircraft to provide information that would supplement existing CVR and FDR data in accident investigations.[77] Media related to Flight data recorders at Wikimedia Commons This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Transportation Safety Board.