CONF iture;
re, "
There must be a trace somewhere to tell about the ECAM selections ...", (Post
#59)
No, there almost certainly isn't.
As is frustratingly known, many parameters are simply not recorded, the Right-side PFD/ND displays being the most memorable losses.
It is my experience that ECAM actual text displays (what the crew sees/reads) are almost never recorded. This is because such detailed information is not mandated.
The actual legal requirements for what is mandated to be recorded are tiny in comparison with what is actually available on the SSFDR.
As I have offered a number of times now, the QAR, tradtionally employed for FOQA/FDM/FDA Programs records far more parameters and at higher sample rates. All it takes is money, first to pay for the design, create, execute the logical frame layout for the QAR and the aircraft installation and second to pay for the STCs/certification information either from the manufacturer of the specific dataframe layout in the installed DFDAUs or for a generic one which may be type-specific but not airline specific and so may not record some parameters which have different frame layout structures.
There is no legal guidance as to what must be recorded by QARs.
A data frame resembles an Excel spreadsheet. The frame layout is designed to expect very specific information from a specific source in a very specific format in exactly one row of cells, normally 4 columns wide and 256 or 512 rows long. If it doesn't get the specific "words", (usually 12-bit words), garbage results. There are many, many frame layouts even for one type of aircraft. They are tailored to each airline's specifications and aircraft configurations.
Frame layouts are explained in a number of places. I've quoted
CAP731 many times.
CAP 739 on FDM Programs is also helpful.
Your arguments regarding the unavailability of data, and the unavailability of data for parties outside the "official process" may not be with the manufacturer, who is not precisely responsible for the structure of the actual data frame layout on the SSDFR beyond what is mandated by the JARS/FARS/CARS etc, nor would it necessarily be with the BEA (or the TSB or the NTSB etc).
Your argument, one which I would support, is, I believe, for vastly enhanced recording capability as well as open sharing of such data, (which is doubtful for a number of reasons which need not detain us here). The first point requires an (optimistic!) freeing up of the frustrating proprietary nature of such data frames so that others who do not have rich data frame layouts may take advantage of designs that are more sophisticated, (meaning, they provide more data from a larger number of systems).
Data frame layouts are software designs and as such are almost always proprietary and for QARs, require an STC.
The time-consuming appropriation of such logical data frame layouts by others for general use can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and still be quite incomplete due to the vastly different airline configurations of even one type. As described, these are tailored documents and software.
Specifically, it is not possible to obtain from the manufacturer of a DFDAU a specific data frame for your type of aircraft without paying significant licence fees and STCs for such installations. The appearance of a "reluctance to share" is not always a reluctance to share. The unavailability of data which all of a sudden is deemed important but once was not, is nothing more than someone's decision to not spend the money to record everything possible.
In fact, some airlines just choose a "sampling" of their fleet for FDA Programs, believing that statistics from a few types or a few airplanes may be reasonably extrapolated to the larger fleet population. A reasonable notion from a bean-counter's perspective but when a serious event occurs on one airplane that doesn't have an FDA QAR on it, the airline has blinded itself and the statistical model falls over. Again, another question entirely.