Ask HN: Why do airlines keep ‘Black Box’ flight data inside planes? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why do airlines keep ‘Black Box’ flight data inside planes?

2 pointssirteno5 comments

There has to be a good explanation as to why the black box is kept inside the aircraft. My suspicion is that cost (i.e. investment ROI) is a main driver given low occurrence of plane disappearances / disasters. Intuitively I can also think of design advantages of having a “black box” recording everything locally. For one, it can continue to track data even after external communications are cut. However, it’s always been puzzling to me why at least basic flight or positioning data is not wirelessly transmitted to satellites. Surely there has to be a better middle ground.

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I think we will see some innovation soon . . . especially after MH370.

They should probably add a few location buoy devices that record the location on impact in water and if the plane lands in water they break free from the plane and start transmitting a ping and the location information to satellites.

I expect they will have a real time location transmitter so they can pull up the plane location in real time, track deviations from flight paths, etc.

A secondary transponder that can't be deactivated from inside the plane would be a plus too.

Also they should setup transponders and new tracking devices where they can not be disabled easily from inside the plane.

Definitely room for innovation.

It is transmitted in some cases. It depends on the airline. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Communications_Addres...

Here is an example where it somewhat helped crash investigators: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447

Full data recorder info being sent wirelessly is a big "ask." You'd be transmitting full cockpit audio in real time (security risk?) so you'd need encryption, and you'd also need it to work over the ocean which even getting radar for is a huge pain.

It isn't impossible. With enough cash it is very possible. But you're looking at a new array of satellites just for this purpose alone, new standards (i.e. secure rather than insecure uplink), and plenty of expensive certification. Maybe 1 billion budget could do it? Maybe more (if it isn't US or Russia, so launching satellites gets more expensive).

Because it's transmitted by radio to anyone who can receive it.

See http://www.flightradar24.com/free-ads-b-equipment/ for some equipment capable of getting these local radio signals.

because radio is unreliable many times

up until recently there was an issue with transmission quality/bandwidth (I'm sure even now when you are doing remote/trans-oceanic flights)

hardened hardware is way more reliable

I would say a good middle ground would be broadcast telemetry on some side band or bursts with traditional hardware as a backup.

I've always wondered why basic information (positioning data, speed, altitude, status etc ...) were not transmitted via satellite and processed/stored by a central agency.

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