Art Die Black Box Not Bigger Than a Person Not Smaller
With the crashes of AirAsia flight QZ8501 and Malaysia Airlines MH17, forth with the disappearance of flight MH370, there is again focus on airline "black boxes".
Hither are some things you might non know about black boxes:
1. They're not black
Black boxes are the aforementioned colour as the Gilt Gate Bridge in San Francisco ... kind of. They are a tone of what's known as international orange, which is a fix of three colours used in aerospace and engineering to distinguish objects from their surroundings. The Gilded Gate Span is a darker shade, while the international orangish used for black boxes is much brighter.
2. A 'black box' comes in two parts
The "black box" is made up of ii split pieces of equipment: the flying data recorder (FDR) and a cockpit vocalism recorder (CVR). They are compulsory on whatever commercial flight or corporate jet, and are usually kept in the tail of an aircraft, where they are more likely to survive a crash. FDRs record things like airspeed, altitude, vertical dispatch and fuel menstruum. Early versions used wire string to encode the data; these days they use solid-state memory boards. Solid-state recorders in large aircraft tin rail more 700 parameters.
three. They were invented by an Australian
Dr David Warren's ain male parent was killed in a Bass Strait plane crash in 1934, when David was just nine years erstwhile. In the early on 1950s, Dr Warren had an thought for a unit that could tape flight information and cockpit conversations, to assistance analysts piece together the events that led to an blow. He wrote a memo for the Aeronautical Research Eye in Melbourne called "A Device for Profitable Investigation into Aircraft Accidents", and in 1956 produced a paradigm flight recorder called the "ARL Flight Retentiveness Unit". His invention did not get much attending until five years afterward, and the units were eventually manufactured in the Uk and US. Nonetheless, Australia was the offset country to make the technology compulsory.
four. Experts don't phone call them "black boxes"
The term "black box" is favoured past the media, simply most people in the know don't call them that. There are several theories for the original of the name "black box", ranging from early designs existence perfectly dark inside, to a announcer's description of a "wonderful blackness box", to charring that happens in mail-blow fires.
From The Conversation:
Blackness boxes are normally referred to by aviation experts as electronic flying information recorders. Their role is to go on detailed track of on-flying information, recording all flight information such as distance, position and speed as well as all pilot conversations. It is common for many ceremonious airliners to have multiple devices to carry out these tasks and then that data can be gathered more easily in the event of a failure. In most instances, they are used to help in the diagnosis of what may take been the probable cause of an accident.
five. Merely 2 hours of cockpit conversations are kept
Digital recorders have enough storage for 25 hours of flight data but simply two hours of cockpit vocalism recording, which is recorded over itself in a loop. The CVRs rails the coiffure'due south interactions with each other and air traffic control, but also background noise that can requite vital clues to investigators. Earlier magnetic tape versions could just record 30 minutes of cockpit conversations and noise, which was too recorded in a loop.
6. It can take a long fourth dimension to find one
Black boxes are fitted with an underwater locator buoy that starts emitting a pulse if its sensor touches water. They work to a depth of just over 4 kilometres, and can "ping" once a second for thirty days earlier the battery runs out, meaning MH370's black box stopped pinging around April seven, 2014. Subsequently Air France flying 447 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, it took search teams two years to find and raise the black boxes. They provided valuable data about what actually happened prior to the crash.
The United states Navy sent a Towed Pinger Locator (pictured above) to aid with the search for MH370'due south flight information recorders. The locator is used for finding emergency relocation pingers on downed Navy and commercial aircraft at a maximum depth of 20,000 feet anywhere in the earth. Considering flight MH17 crashed over land, finding it should be more straightforward.
vii. They're near indestructible...
FDRs are usually double-wrapped in titanium or stainless steel, and must be able to withstand awful conditions. The crucial part that contains the retention boards, the CSMU, is shot out of an air cannon to create an bear upon of 3,400 Gs and and then smashed against a target. It is subjected to a 227kg weight with a pivot attached to it, which is dropped onto the unit from a height of iii metres. Researchers attempt to crush it, destroy information technology in an hr of one,100 degree Celsius burn, submerge it in a pressurised salt h2o tank, and immerse it in jet fuel.
8. ... Merely they're not as powerful as your telephone
In the aftermath of MH370, experts say it might be fourth dimension to update methods of collecting flying data. Passengers are able to text, stream and surf the internet only the data recorders on board are not communicating in existent time with the rest of the earth. However, the bandwidth needed to stream huge amounts of data from large aircraft is not currently viable. Aviation author Stephen Trimble writes in the Guardian that Boeing has applied for a patent on a system that volition transmit a subset of data including the plane's location:
There will exist costs to mandating such a system, but the benefits are articulate. Multi-national search and recovery teams involving a fleet of ships and search aircraft should no longer be necessary. Disquisitional safety data could provide clues of organization or structural failures much faster, making the entire air transport system safer.
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Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-26/black-box-flight-recorders/5343456
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