Black box inventor David Warren dies
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Black box inventor David Warren dies
Reported in Australian press today 21 July 2010.
Australian Department of Defence has issued a Press Statement.
Mike
Media Release - Department of Defence
Defence and the Australian scientific community is mourning the death of Dr David Warren, inventor of the Black Box flight data recorder, who passed away on 19 July at the age of 85.
Born in 1925 at a remote mission station in far north-east Australia, Dr Warren served as Principal Research Scientist at the Defence Science and Technology Organisation’s Aeronautical Research Laboratories (ARL) in Melbourne, from 1952 – 1983.
Early in his career, Dr Warren was involved in accident investigations related to the mysterious crash of the world’s first jet airliner, the Comet, in 1953.
He advocated the use of a cockpit voice recorder as a useful means of solving otherwise inexplicable aircraft accidents. He designed and constructed the world's first flight data recorder prototype at the ARL in 1956. This device became known as the ‘black box’.
It took five years before the value and practicality of the flight data recorder concept was realised and a further five years until authorities mandated they be fitted to cockpits in Australian aircraft. The modern-day equivalent of Dr Warren’s device, installed in passenger airlines around the world is a testament to his pioneering work. It is now also used in other forms of road transport to capture information in the lead-up to accidents.
Dr Warren’s flight data recorder has made an invaluable contribution to safety in world aviation.
In November 2008, Qantas announced that they had named an Airbus A380 aircraft after
Dr Warren in honour of his contribution to aviation. Dr Warren was one of only two aviation pioneers who were there to see the unveiling of the names that would grace the new fleet. His name will join such aviation luminaries as Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and
Nancy-Bird Walton in adorning one of twenty new planes.
Among many awards during his career, Dr Warren and his team also received the Lawrence Hargraves award in 2001 for their work on the Black Box flight recorder. He was appointed an Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia in 2002 for service to the aviation industry.
Dr Warren simultaneously served as chairman of the Combustion Institute (Australian & New Zealand Section) for 25 years (1958 – 1983) and Scientific Energy Adviser to the Victorian Parliament (1981 – 1982).
David Warren is survived by his wife Ruth, four children and seven grandchildren.
Media note:
The family asks that their privacy be respected at this time.
Media contact:
Defence Media Liaison: 02 6127 1999 or 0408 498 664
Australian Department of Defence has issued a Press Statement.
Mike
Media Release - Department of Defence
Vale Dr David Warren AO: 1925 – 2010
Born in 1925 at a remote mission station in far north-east Australia, Dr Warren served as Principal Research Scientist at the Defence Science and Technology Organisation’s Aeronautical Research Laboratories (ARL) in Melbourne, from 1952 – 1983.
Early in his career, Dr Warren was involved in accident investigations related to the mysterious crash of the world’s first jet airliner, the Comet, in 1953.
He advocated the use of a cockpit voice recorder as a useful means of solving otherwise inexplicable aircraft accidents. He designed and constructed the world's first flight data recorder prototype at the ARL in 1956. This device became known as the ‘black box’.
It took five years before the value and practicality of the flight data recorder concept was realised and a further five years until authorities mandated they be fitted to cockpits in Australian aircraft. The modern-day equivalent of Dr Warren’s device, installed in passenger airlines around the world is a testament to his pioneering work. It is now also used in other forms of road transport to capture information in the lead-up to accidents.
Dr Warren’s flight data recorder has made an invaluable contribution to safety in world aviation.
In November 2008, Qantas announced that they had named an Airbus A380 aircraft after
Dr Warren in honour of his contribution to aviation. Dr Warren was one of only two aviation pioneers who were there to see the unveiling of the names that would grace the new fleet. His name will join such aviation luminaries as Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and
Nancy-Bird Walton in adorning one of twenty new planes.
Among many awards during his career, Dr Warren and his team also received the Lawrence Hargraves award in 2001 for their work on the Black Box flight recorder. He was appointed an Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia in 2002 for service to the aviation industry.
Dr Warren simultaneously served as chairman of the Combustion Institute (Australian & New Zealand Section) for 25 years (1958 – 1983) and Scientific Energy Adviser to the Victorian Parliament (1981 – 1982).
David Warren is survived by his wife Ruth, four children and seven grandchildren.
Media note:
The family asks that their privacy be respected at this time.
Media contact:
Defence Media Liaison: 02 6127 1999 or 0408 498 664
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Dr Warren is justly celebrated now, but it was not always thus, and the conservatism of the British and Australian aviation establishments prevented his ideas being accepted. He never benefitted from their commercial development when they did get put into use.
I had occasion to talk to him at length about the invention of the CVR in the late 90s and I took notes on what he said. He was shocked and surprised at the reaction of the Australian aviation establishment when he broached the idea in 1954. He was formally told that his device, essentially a CVR run on a steel wire tape recorder: "this apparatus has no significance for Australian aviation".
He then took it to the Royal Australian Air Force, and was told: "We do not need your device. It would only record expletives anyway. Aircraft are expendable items."
Unable to get anywhere in Australia, he took himself and his ideas to the UK, where he tried to put a CVR into commercial development. My memory of what happened then is imprecise, but he did not have any luck in the UK either, again because of the conservatism of the aviation establishment.
At Boscombe Down, however, they needed a CVR, and an FDR, because so many aircraft crashed taking all the data with them. They added recordable channels to the steel wire recording medium to record basic data, e.g. airspeed, heading, altitude etc. They did all this because transmitting the data was impossible in case somebody monitored the transmissions.
As far as I know there was no crossover to civil aircraft of what the military had learned. Of course, while Warren invented the CVR in principle, the most commonly used one, the Fairchild A100 with the endless, loop tape was engineered by Hans Napfel in Florida in the early 1960s.
I had occasion to talk to him at length about the invention of the CVR in the late 90s and I took notes on what he said. He was shocked and surprised at the reaction of the Australian aviation establishment when he broached the idea in 1954. He was formally told that his device, essentially a CVR run on a steel wire tape recorder: "this apparatus has no significance for Australian aviation".
He then took it to the Royal Australian Air Force, and was told: "We do not need your device. It would only record expletives anyway. Aircraft are expendable items."
Unable to get anywhere in Australia, he took himself and his ideas to the UK, where he tried to put a CVR into commercial development. My memory of what happened then is imprecise, but he did not have any luck in the UK either, again because of the conservatism of the aviation establishment.
At Boscombe Down, however, they needed a CVR, and an FDR, because so many aircraft crashed taking all the data with them. They added recordable channels to the steel wire recording medium to record basic data, e.g. airspeed, heading, altitude etc. They did all this because transmitting the data was impossible in case somebody monitored the transmissions.
As far as I know there was no crossover to civil aircraft of what the military had learned. Of course, while Warren invented the CVR in principle, the most commonly used one, the Fairchild A100 with the endless, loop tape was engineered by Hans Napfel in Florida in the early 1960s.
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Every Australian should know his name
I know this is an old thread, but I have just read it.
It made me feel sad reading it, because he didn't die with enough recognition. His funeral should have been enormous and bigger than Michael Jackson's.
He save so many lives and I made a video of his life.
David Warren’s Amazing Black Box | Eve Cogan's Blog
-Eve
It made me feel sad reading it, because he didn't die with enough recognition. His funeral should have been enormous and bigger than Michael Jackson's.
He save so many lives and I made a video of his life.
David Warren’s Amazing Black Box | Eve Cogan's Blog
-Eve
