CVR for light helis (Merged)

[headsethair]

In January's UK accident reports from the AAIB, there's reference to a frustrated investigation team who couldn't solve a fatal accident because the Hughes 369 was not required to carry a CVR. (Which is the same for all light helis - even if they are certified for public transport).

The AAIB has received backing from the UK govt for a proposal to put to ICAO that all light PT helis should be required to carry CVR. And they are also asking ICAO to lean on manufacturers to come up with some cheap, lightweight CVRs.

Any thoughts ? It's all possible - an iPod is perfectly capable of doing the job. Or even a tapeless dictation recorder. Or a cellphone.

But : Certification. That'll mean that the costs will rockets and it'll be another 5 years before we see anything. By which time, he technology will have moved on.......usual old aviation problem.

Which is why my car has got better GPS than any aircraft.

It's nuts.

[Gimble Stop]

Apart from entertainment for ground staff, what sort of useful information would you expect to get from a CVR in a single crew environment? All broadcasts to ATC will be recorded anyway.

“ Oh **** the blue blade has delaminated at the 3rd station and is causing a one per rev vibration at 4.02 ips”

I think not.!

[SASless]

Well Gimble....

Maybe a transcript that contains any last words you might like to get out would be nice....an analysis of the tape that comes up with the usual "I am outta here statement...." would at least indicate you were not knowing of the cause. Short departure comments like...."Ah....(insert your favorite four letter word)! for example.

Now if you were cool, calm, and collected....scratch calm....afterall you will be cool when collected following one of these events...and did have the presence of mind to say something about what brought on your suddent free fall....it would help.

But what the heck...the AAIB folks need a good puzzle every now and then....keeps them earning their paychecks.

[NickLappos]

The CVR has an area mike that we use to tell all sorts of stuff. The blade passages mark the rpm, and the sounds of engine tell its power (N1 speed shreeks a bit). The crew also say things, and the timing of the sounds to ATC chatter mark the position when things went bad (when the radar traces are also gotten).

The cost is because they demand that the things run in boiling oil and fall from 1 zillion feet, but new small solid state recorders should be uch cheaper. I would think a light, less well protected one could be built for light helos, if we all thought hard about it.

[Gimble Stop]

Thankyou NickLappos for your considered remarks. You obviously have some experience this area. It is nice to hear from people that have something genuine to contribute that educates us all a little. I had no idea that so much information could be obtained from an audio file.

Well Sasless, it seems you had no idea also. Maybe you and I should do more reading and less typing! I feel like a di##head. How do you feel?

[ppheli]

I was just reading the latest AAIB which included a long (23 pages, no less) report on a fatal H369HS accident near Biggin Hill UK in July 03 - http://www.aaib.gov.uk/sites/aaib/cms_resources/G-CSPJ.pdf

The report is inconclusive and has two safety recommendations:-

Safety Recommendation 2004-84

The Department for Transport should urge the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) to promote the safety benefits of fitting, as a minimum, cockpit voice recording equipment to all aircraft operating with a Certificate of Airworthiness in the Commercial Air Transport category, regardless of weight or age.


Safety Recommendation 2004-85

The Department for Transport should urge the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) to promote research into the design and development of inexpensive, lightweight, airborne flight data and voice recording equipment. In a letter to the AAIB dated 14 October 2004 the Department for Transport gave its full support to these two safety recommendations.


CVRs and FDRs have got to be "a good thing", but at what cost (in terms of weight in a small helicopter, etc). No doubt there will be lots of opinions on this!

[Heliport]

So does the recommendation relate to all light helicopters or only Transport category?


Gimble Stop
You're being too harsh on yourself - and on SASless who has decades of experience of mil and civvy flying in various parts of the world.

Heliport

[headsethair]

"So does the recommendation relate to all light helicopters or only Transport category?"

The report says that the start would be PT category light helis.

There is also a discussion about Flight Data Recorders, but I think they realise that these are impossible for most existing light helis.

Despite the tragedy of this accident, the report gives a must-read detailed description of the accident investigator's job.

[SASless]

Heliport,

The point is well taken...CVR's and FDR's both provide excellent means of data collection. At the expense of sobriety, some of my posts fall short of a universal application to the topic. The majority of crashes involving light helicopters are not mysteries...but usually involve straight forward mechanical failure or in-appropriate application of flight controls....or simply running into something hard. I fail to see the absolute need to install the units in all the fleet as a mandatory requirement.

The additional costs for the equipment and the additional weight are valid considerations. The AAIB and the NTSB in this country are pushing for the installation and use of such devices.

In my country, the NTSB wants the trucking industry to install the equivalent of FDR's on commerical trucks to aid in accident reconstruction of truck-car accidents. The trucking industry of course is fighting such a thing....whereas the more enlightened (in my opinion) are agreeing with the plan....except they want all vehicles to have the equipment so that all driver's conduct can be examined. I would imagine such equipment if installed on all vehicles...commercial, private, truck, and car....would very quickly refute the myth that large trucks are the evil menace they are portrayed to be. Despite one study after another in Canada and the US....it has been shown that truckers are the safer drivers but the media hype will not have it. Maybe then the EDR as it is being called would help solve that problem.

At some point, we have to evalutate the need for the CVR/FDR data for cost versus value. I am for anything that increases safety. However in small helicopters I fear the costs far outweigh the benefit. Would not a HUMS type system be better....although far more expensive yet. If we consider the car-truck situation....maybe we should extend the requirement for having FDR/CVR equipment to all aircraft, to include gliders and balloons, homebuilts, and warbirds. If we are worried only about the data collection and not the expense....then everything that goes airborne should be so equipped.

Where does this end?

Right now I worry more about getting parts for MD aircraft than I am about what clues a basic flight data recorder might provide in a day VMC crash of a MD 369.

One man's opinion here anyway.....

[Genghis the Engineer]

Sketching a few ideas on the back of an envelope, I can't see that a CVR is any big deal from an Engineering viewpoint. I think with off-the shelf parts I could get one fitted into a light helicopter for less than £500 and 1kg. Add in regulatory costs, some crashproofing and a profit margin and you are probably looking at £2-3k and perhaps 2kg. I don't think that there are many small helicopters which couldn't stand that, although in the time honoured fashion it would be best for such a thing not to be retrospective. I'm thinking of something running, say, a 2 hour continuous loop recording from the intercom.


An FDR on the other hand is a totally different kettle of fish, because of the need for data to feed it. The easiest way to do that would probably be use of an uncertified LCD EFIS unit in the copilot/pax seat, which records basic flight data, with a certain amount of crashproofing around it; I'm thinking of something like this (http://www.brauniger.com/cgi-bin/brauniger/menu/menu.cgi?page=/info/english/products/alpha/features.html?sid=1105720418.999469059) which I've flown with a bit and whilst I dislike the ergonomics a great deal, is small, light, under £2k, and does maintain a limited 25 sortie flight and engine record.


Both would be crude and no substitute for a proper CVR/FDR system, but such a full system would probably cost more than a reasonable second hand R22.


Mind you, you have to ask yourself whether there is really enough incidence of small helicopter accidents, where the various BOI really struggled that badly to work out what had happened, to justify it. I read all the UK reports, and I don't think that's the case - it would be expenditure and complexity for the sake of it, and I have trouble with that as a concept.

G