Originally Posted by
broadreach
I expect that, for aviation related transmission, despite all the arguments about satellite bandwidth and the cost of transmitting continuous data from hundreds of thousands of flights every day, we will see affordable cost levels very soon.
Yes, there is a general trend towards continual data monitoring. We are increasingly being monitored everywhere now and there is no reason to suppose aviation to be any different. This is not driven for safety reasons but for cost and maintenance and revenue from data mining. General Electric, for instance is exploring a new revenue model for its engines. The falling cost of sensors, storage and bandwidth will allow them to charge airlines for thrust instead of selling engines. To do this will require precise and continuous monitoring of the engines with much greater detail than is currently done. In this case it does not have to be entirely real-time, of course, but there are other examples. The data from flights is rising quickly with the demand for on board wifi etc.
People will of course be demanding extra checks after the dust has settled on this tragedy, but that's because they forget just how strange this incident is. Aircraft failures in cruise are so rare that they hardly warrant a particular (probably expensive) fix, just because of a bizarre incident, which may be unique in the history of aviation.
The only thing I would like to see is some alarm to go off when a transponder is switched off. This should not be possible without alerting ATC or satellite message. I am very surprised something was not done about this after 9/11/01.