Big brother watching or welcome safety measure????
I asked this a while ago on the rotorheads forum (as I am of the egg-whisk school) and got some very good and interesting responses. I thought I would ask this same question on a fixed wing forum as they tend to be used more widely in this area.
I am currently working for a firm that is installing a FDR onto several military trainer aircraft of a new customer.
This flight data will be downloaded every week and the data analysed for engine and airframe stress management purposes and a report sent to the customer every six months, unless there is a problem identified.
This will obviously enable them to rotate aircraft and ensure one aircraft is not being "hammered" to death in aeros whilst another is being used just for circuit training. There will also be monitoring of the engines to pre-empt any problems and hot section inspections etc.
Another aspect of this data analysis will be that "Exceedance monitoring" programs will be run on the data to pick up any unreported stresses, engine or airframe. There will also be the normal use for incidents to help stop any p*ssing contests between pilots, customer and manufacturer should it be unclear as to what exactly happened.
Ive included some examples of what is being recorded and would like viewpoints of the profesional or private pilots as to whether you think it is a welcome safety feature and be glad someone is looking after your interests or do you consider it to be big brother looking over your shoulder??
Airspeed
Pressure Altitude
Heading
RadALt
ILS Deviations
Accelerations (Normal, lateral and longitudinal)
GPS Present Position
Engine parameters
Pitch
Roll
Control Surface Position/Pilot Input
GPS UTC
Flap position
WoW
Gear position
Would it bother you Ppruners that all this info could be analysed by engineers on a weekly basis and if you were a little heavy on the stick or throttle (or worse), an exceedance flag could be reported back to your employer or CO??