Flight recorder

A flight data recorder ( known colloquially as Black Box ) is an entrained on aircraft recording device, the relevant flight and aircraft parameters during a flight with a timeline stores and consists of flight data recorder and voice recorder, which give an additional opportunity for a flight accident, the most important events and track parameters in order to understand how the accident happened. The storage and the structure is designed so that it should withstand high temperatures and high water pressure when possible plane crashes over land and over water high impact velocities.

Technology

There are two types of flight recorders ( flight recorders ): the flight data recorder ( FDR) flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder ( CVR), so the vote recorder. In some cases, both recorder in a single FDR / CVR unit are housed together.

The devices are now installed usually in the middle or at the rear of the machine, which experience has shown are the least destroyed in an accident. Today's models are each about the size of a shoe box, colored in striking bright orange and provided with equally eye-catching labels " FLIGHT RECORDER DO NOT OPEN " on one side in English and the other in French " ENREGISTREUR DE VOL NE PAS OUVRIR ", at least until waterproof to 6,000 meters and have a protective device that protects the records from mechanical stress and to prevent fire with temperatures of over 1,000 ° C (30 min ). The device specifications are defined in the standardization guidelines electronics in aviation the European Organization for Civil Aviation Equipment document in the EUROCAE ED -112 (Minimum Operational Performance Specification for Crash Protected Airborne Recorder Systems). EUROCAE is the European equivalent of the U.S. RTCA, both of which work closely together.

Underwater detection

To assist in the search for an accident in the underwater area of ​​each cockpit voice recorder ( CVR) and Flight Data Recorder ( FDR) with an underwater Ortungsbake (English Underwater Locator Beacon, short ULB) equipped. The device is switched to the mode pingers (English pinger ) when it comes into contact with water. It then sends an acoustic signal at the frequency of 37.5 kHz, which (about 4,250 meters) can be registered with an ultrasound receiver to depths of 14,000 feet. The ULB unit is powered by its own batteries with a minimum shelf life of 6 years and has sufficient capacity to maintain at least 30 days to send mode.

Flight data recorder

The flight data recorder ( engl. flight data recorder, FDR ) and also digital flight data recorder ( engl. digital flight data recorder, DFDR ) records depending on the technique a few to over a hundred flight parameters such as altitude, speed, heading, angle of inclination of the machine, rowing and flap positions and engine parameters. To storage media ( magnetic tape, or semiconductor memory ) can be used that have sufficient capacity to record the data a sufficient time. Thereafter, the oldest records are overwritten. The individual parameters are listed in EUROCAE document ED 112.

Voice Recorder

The voice recorder (English cockpit voice recorder, CVR) continuously records the last 30 to 120 minutes. The recording should start automatically before the airplane moving under its own power and will last without interruption until the pilots leave the plane. Data are based on a time scale on a magnetic tape or a semiconductor memory, depending on the version stored.

Cockpit Voice Recorder ( CVR) usually draw the entire voice communications to or from the cockpit, resulting in the cockpit background sounds, including without interruption signals received from each microphone, whether grown on the headphones or emergency via the mask microphone, the conversations of the flight crew members on cockpit that are guided over the intercom, audio signals identifying navigation devices and approach aids, and acoustic alarms, which are transmitted through headphones or speakers on. The Voice communications of flight crew members in the cockpit, made ​​through the public address system in the passenger area, is stored.

The voice recorder often plays a crucial role when it comes to failure of the occupation to be the cause of an aircraft accident. Thus it can be, for example, find out whether alarms were active or not worked, and a spectral analysis of background noise may provide clues to the engine function.

Telemetry

The cause of the crash of Air France flight 447 in June 2009 could not be finally resolved a long time since flight data recorders and voice recorders were found only in early May 2011. Airbus began before finding the box with the development of a flight data recorder based on the telemetry. The data is transmitted to a ground station from the aircraft via radio satellite. The Bombardier CSeries will be the first aircraft that are equipped with this technology.

Evaluation

Known investigation institutions, the flight recorders can evaluate are:

• The Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Investigation (BFU ) in Braunschweig
• The National Transportation Safety Board ( NTSB ) in the United States
• The Bureau d' Enquêtes et d' Analyses pour la sécurité de l'Aviation Civile (BEA ) in France
• The Air Accidents Investigation Branch ( AAIB ) in the UK.

Manufacturer

A leading manufacturer of flight data recorders and voice recorders is the L-3 Communications Corporation, which will provide these tools among others for the Airbus A350.

Other manufacturers are Hamilton Sundstrand, which has delivered, among other flight data recorder for Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, and Dukane Corporation. Flight recorders cost $ between 10,000 and 15,000 U.S..

History

Inventor of the black box is the Australian aerospace engineer David Warren of the Aeronautical Research Laboratories of Australia. He was involved as an investigator in the investigation of an initially completely mysterious crash series of time -the-art de Havilland " Comet " jet aircraft in the years 1953 and 1954, which is neither survivors nor were eyewitnesses who could be interviewed for the cause. Dr. Warren, who had recently seen at an exhibition at that time new, compact Minifon - Miniaturdrahttongerät, came up with the idea to develop a device that record the conversations in the cockpit and important instrument data on tape and could save about an accident of time, so as to give the accident investigators important clues. Even in 1954 Warren wrote a text entitled "A Device for Assisting Investigation into Aircraft Accidents" (German A device for supporting aircraft accident investigations ). 1957, Dr. Warren completed a prototype which has been tested in flight. However, the Australian aviation authorities initially showed no great interest. Only in 1960 led a never enlightened crash of a Fokker Friendship in Queensland, in which all 29 passengers lost their lives to a trial in which the judge undertook to all Australian airlines to equip all aircraft from 1963 onwards with a voice recorder. 1967 Australia was the first country in the world, which required the presence of acoustic recorder and flight data recorder in aircraft. The Hawker Siddeley Trident was in 1964 the first airplane pattern that was equipped with a flight recorder.

First flight data recorder recorded only on the velocity ( Pitot tube ) and the barometric altitude.

Today's minimum equipment for the transport of persons and property in commercial air transport is governed by the JAR -OPS 1 and OPS 3.

Others

Since July 2002, certain vessels must be equipped with a similar device. It's called Voyage Data Recorder. The Federal Maritime and Hydrographic writes on his website:

" Technically, this voyage data recorder are superior to the flight data recorders far as they store a much larger variety of data. In addition to the usual voice recording, is the VDR also all important navigation data and machine data as well as the representation of the radar image, which is recorded four times per minute, saved lossless. [ ... ] The "black box" [ will ] continue to have in the reconstruction of maritime accidents of particular importance as a reliable data source. It will help to avoid the repetition of mistakes made on ships and to increase the overall security. "

Images of flight recorders

Open Flight Data Recorder, behind the cockpit voice recorder ( CVR)

Flight Recorder (FDR )

Diving robot with found flight recorder