Originally Posted by
m0nkfish
I'm not an expert on satellite communications but would be interested to hear from anyone that is. Do the SATCOM packages installed on civilian aircraft require the antenna to be aligned with an appropriate satellite? If so, it is likely that any uplink is going to be terminated at the point where you are going to most want the data from the FDR/CVR when the aircraft departs from controlled flight (assuming there is such a departure).
Aligning: Yep. Though usually, the reason of an upset is before the upset itself happens.
Regarding the spying out on Pilots: I don't think, this data goes into the regular CVR/FDR, though more into a QAR type, which probably won't survive a crash like MU5735. Though useful, to "control" the political thinking of pilots, ehhhh, to enhance safety to correct pilot errors before these can become an issue.