After the famous 320's excursion into the trees, the ITV's 'Chronicle' I think it was, had two long investigative programs about the accident and the strange goings on afterwords.
I'm not totally sure of the program name, but I am sure about a statement made - that local magistrates were certain that the recorders they saw in the trunk of the car at the site, were not the ones they later saw. I was puzzled by this because they would no doubt have been cleaned etc., but this was something that the magistrates were (reported to be) very unhappy about. There were myriads of other things, but what happened to the co-pilot was beyond credulity.
Data uploading would best be discussed in the tech forum, but just to say that sending packages of data to other aircraft might be a simple alternative.
It would be far easier to do than set up a cell/mobile phone system, but of course there wouldn't be the $$$$'s pouring in as a reward.
The sky is full of aircraft...pinging data to each other is mostly a case of organizing protocol.
Each data package would have to be sent back to confirm its integrity, so a limit could be made on how many aircraft held one given batch of data. Say ten other aircraft would hold that particular batch, then reject others from that aircraft. Any crisis or anomaly, and all surrounding aircraft start downloading that channel.
Longer term uploads - as previously discussed, so that the flying host units could be purged.
The thing about aircraft is that they have line of sight to a lot of orbital hardware. The signal strength needed, much less than ground-based transmissions. I'm sure the days of diving for black boxes is limited, but I'm astonished that they have gone on for so long.
BTW I recall one of my colleagues meeting his end in a Viscount. It was said that the recorder wire was in 20,000 pieces. Still they read it.
Last edited by Loose rivets; 30th Nov 2008 at 05:20.