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Comment by prvc | Hacker News Reader

The inventor's name was David Warren. The invention was the flight recorder. Perhaps the title could convey this information, making it more informative on its own.

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Agreed. It's an interesting story, but the title is pure clickbait.

The story itself also fails at inverted pyramid, which is something you'd expect from a piece under "News/Australia" on the site, but I guess they just put in in the wrong place, and inverted pyramid itself is a concept that became forgotten in an ad-supported journalism era.

In case others are curious about what “inverted pyramid” means:

The writer prioritizes the factual information to be conveyed in the news story by importance. The most essential pieces of information are offered in the first line, which is called the lead (or summary lead).

https://www.thoughtco.com/inverted-pyramid-composition-16910...

The BBC has figured out that if they give away the article content in the title people won't click.

I hope their analytics will indicate "people leave as soon as they get to the paragraph where it starts implying he invented the flight recorder" as well.

That would only tell them it worked as intended? And maybe they should put the reveal even further in?

BBC news has gone slowly but steadily downhill over the past decade - the dumbing down, FUD and clickbait headlines are perhaps the final steps in it's slow march to becoming tabloid news.

Couldn't agree more. It's like the editors of the Daily Mail all upped and left to go work at the BBC.

Unfortunately, could say that about a lot of other news media too.

Many, yes. I expected better from the BBC though :(

A product of its time and environment I suppose, given the shape of the UK lately.

David Warren's contribution was in 1953. The first modern flight data recorder, called "Mata Hari", was created in 1942 by Finnish aviation engineer Veijo Hietala. During World War II both British and American air forces successfully experimented with aircraft voice recorders. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_recorder

For one thing "Mata Hari" did not record voice. I believe Warren's was one of the first to record both voice and data.

It does appear Warren's novel contribution was the combined FDR/CVR.

Was it secret at the time?

Theres also a different intended use.

You always get issues like this with 'firsts', theres very little new under the sun, so the lines are always going to be arbitrary.

Professor James J. "Crash" Ryan's '"Flight Recorder" patent was filed in August 1953 a device he invented in response to a 1948 request from the Civil Aeronautics Board aimed at establishing operating procedures to reduce air mishaps.

I was responding to the Mata Hari. Ryan's recorder doesn't seem to record sound?

As I said, you always get this with 'firsts'.

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