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Old 20th Apr 2014, 18:24
  #10019 (permalink)  
kwh
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
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It strikes me that these days (a duplicate copy of) the recorded flight data from both black boxes could in fact be stored in something physically tiny that was entirely self contained and external to the plane. There have been demands for a transponder to be carried that cannot be disabled by the crew, under duress or otherwise, so how about a little unit, externally mounted, on the tail cone perhaps, top of the fuselage or tip of the fin. No physical connection to aircraft power or systems, powered by an on board battery, which in turn is charged by a miniature RAM air turbine when the aircraft is moving. Include a transponder that will respond on demand to an internationally standardised IFF style interrogation challenge, or maybe regularly just pings co-ordinates to a satellite. If the same device also contains a non-volatile memory module which is written to from inside the plane via a bluetooth interface from the _real_ black boxes, with a facimile copy of both CVR & FDR data, all in a package designed to survive a water landing and end up on the surface amongst the debris field, if there is one, perhaps with the on-board satellite pinger previously mentioned still operating, then this situation literally can't happen again...
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