FDRs & CVRs - Solar Powered Floating Locators
I have been advocating a similar idea ever since Malaysian 370 disappeared: a barostatic release of the FDR & CVR deploying when an aircraft descends below a certain depth of water, or after a ground crash, attached to a flotation device/platform, it then uses a simple solar-powered battery to Tx its position and/or send out Sarbe type pings. If the flotation device were large enough and made of Hi-vis, radar reflective material finding it should not be too difficult by radar and then visually and the beacon would keep on and on txing.
Moving the recorders to a more suitable location higher in the tail of more-than-60-mins over-water aircraft would be the biggest expense which one can only assume is too expensive for this idea to catch on. Shame on you aircraft manufacturers. The technology is available : only the incentive is lacking. The cost would be less than installing an aircraft in-flight entertainment system too. One day I will able to say...I told you so!
Last edited by Jetset 88; 25th Mar 2015 at 23:53.
Reason: typo error