FAA Mandates Major Aircraft "Black Box" Upgrade 277
coondoggie writes "Earlier this week the FAA mandated upgrades and updates to aircraft voice and data recorders within the US. The goal of the updates: to assist future investigations with 'more and better data' from accidents and incidents. The 'mandate means manufacturers such as Honeywell and L-3 Communications as well as operators of airplanes and helicopters with 10 or more seats, must employ voice recorders, also known as black boxes, that capture the last two hours of cockpit audio instead of the current 15 to 30 minutes. The new rules also require an independent backup power source for the voice recorders to allow continued recording for nine to 11 minutes if all aircraft power sources are lost or interrupted. Voice recorders also must use solid state technology instead of magnetic tape, which is vulnerable to damage and loss of reliability.'"
Re:It sounds so easy but (Score:5, Informative)
Requires massive acceleration (Score:2, Informative)
Please do some research [wikipedia.org] first. "Currently, EUROCAE specifies that a recorder must be able to withstand an acceleration of 3400 g (33 km/s) for 6.5 milliseconds." To test the armor and memory, manufacturers test them by firing them out of a calibrated cannon (compressed air, not gunpowder) into a hard surface.
They also survive crush tests, penetration tests (IIRC, 1/4" steel dowel on a 500lb weight dropped 10' on all six faces), short term high intensity heat (propane flame "goosed" with oxygen to make it hot enough), long term moderate (600^C?) heat soak, and pressurized seawater immersion (I forgot the equivalent depth, way further than I would care to dive).
On the Wikipedia pictures, the circular/semi-circular painted part is the armor (with the rectangular versions, the armor is inside the shell). The silvery cylinder on the near end is an underwater locating beacon "pinger".
A magnetic media recorder would not survive what the solid state recorders survive. The old metal foil scribe recorders would probably survive but don't record many signals nor very accurately.
Finally (Score:5, Informative)
In any case I never understood why these recorders weren't required to have a battery backup from the beginning. Seems pretty idiotic since accidents involving loss of power are not hard to imagine. Furthermore devices like card access systems and elevators have had battery backups for years.
Summary forgot an important detail (Score:4, Informative)
"These provisions affect new aircraft manufactured after March 7, 2010."
This won't affect a single new aircraft for two years unless Boeing, Airbus, Bombardier, and Embraer decide to do it on their own, and it does NOT apply to the existing fleet of transport category aircraft at all (i.e., retrofits are not required).
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Re:It sounds so easy but (Score:4, Informative)
Long story short: Lightning travels along either the aluminum skin or special strips stuck to any non-metallic surfaces and continues on its way without damaging anything.
These are the type of strips [lightningdiversion.com] the Discovery show was talking about. AFAIK, in a properly maintained plane, lightning almost never goes anywhere near the electronics.
Re:Question: why just record? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Yeah, good luck with that. (Score:3, Informative)
And you think the FAA doesn't know the potential problems and hasn't been working on them for years? These devices have been under development for around thirty years and have been commercially available (and certified by the FAA) for over a decade now.
The FAA didn't just make this decision out of the blue you know.
Re:It sounds so easy but (Score:3, Informative)
Re:If they want (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Solid State is vulnerable to damage as well (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It sounds so easy but (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not really (Score:3, Informative)
* FAA regs Sec 121.344, parts 12, 13, 14
** as above, parts 15 16 17