Originally Posted by
Maninthebar
The advance of technology and reduction in cost makes it VERY hard to understand why on-board systems are limited to 2 hours voice - investment in aircraft and piloting tech seems to have left this subsystem behind.
Transmission to cloud-based storage is currently not sufficiently reliable for real time use, but burst transmission for (infinite) archive would be achievable at what OUGHT to be only a minor cost per hour.
ISTR that, back in the day, there was a confidentiality issue with getting crews to initially accept the presence of CVRs (the "
spy in the cockpit"; c.f. commercial automotive duty-time recorders), as they would be recording not only pertinent exchanges of information, but also the private conversations of the crew; conversations that might not always reflect their views on colleagues, Corporate policy and so forth in the best light. Hence, they were only acceptable to pilots' unions on the basis that the recording remained on the aircraft, under the the control of its crew, until such time as the aircraft safely reached its destination, when the "and-gate" of weight-on-ground, and engine shutdown, enables operation of the ERASE button in order to delete the record so that "what happened in Vegas stayed in Vegas". Beaming the conversations, live, to a cloud might encounter similar resistance.
I take your point about the 2-hour thing but, at some point, it still needs someone to pull the CB. Think 24 hours is going to cut it?