Originally Posted by
fflyingdog
Why do we still need CVRs and FDRs as pyhisical boxes onboard the aircraft ? Perhaps we should be looking at a better form of data recovery,would it not be possible in these high tech days to be able to fit a permanent satellite uplink from each aircraft.....
This was already discussed elsewhere on PPRuNe, somebody can probably post a link.
Two issues...
- The huge amount of (expensive) bandwidth needed to transmit/receive/process 99.999% useless data,
- The simple fact, that in extreme occurrences such as AF447, your "permanent" satellite uplink would already have been interrupted by an extreme aircraft attitude, total power failure, fire, explosive decompression destroying the sattelite aerial and wiring, etc. ... and the final few seconds/minutes of data would never be transmitted....
CJ