TSB flight recorder recommendations

[340drvr]

Not to put down increased safety vigilance, but this sounds rather onerous:

https://www.avweb.com/eletter/archives/101/4033-full.html?ET=avweb:e4033:317051a:&st=email#230741

[roybert]

Originally Posted by 340drvr

Not to put down increased safety vigilance, but this sounds rather onerous:

https://www.avweb.com/eletter/archiv...t=email#230741

340Drvr Why? All that the Transportation Safety Board is recommending in my view is that if the aircraft is used for a commercial purpose than it should a minimum have a FDR which they currently are not required to have. This is the recommendation for the crash involving the former Alberta Premier.

[777AV8R]

Not 'onerous' at all. There have been a number of fatal crashes in the last 10 years that a definitive cause has never been found, as in the Cessna accident. The TSB had made previous recommendations to TCA to require Light Weight FDRs on smaller aircraft. The TSB has recommended it again. And BTW..this recommendation is not for just commercial aircraft, but private operations who have aircraft that fit inside the recommendations. It is a major step in the right direction of safety, but ultimately we have to see where TC is on this issue and if they stand up and make the changes to the CARs.

[JV]

Oh boy, and I say that with five years of work time at a low level TC inspector job. Could no longer support the surprisingly and unbelievably toxic work environment, so like 90% of the new recruits who needed jobs after the 9/11 events, finally escaped the place......

First off, there is an adversarial relationship between the TSB and TC. Mostly by structural design. For those of you who are not canadian, canada pretends to be oh so good and oh so fair, but in reality, they love to tear each other apart. There is a hidden class system operating in the country.

If you note what the TSB says in their press release, all they want to do is have information to point the ''ah ha'' finger. Fair enough. Everyone wants to know why it happened. But they do not care about how much this will cost an air operator or whether they can afford it. The TSB is still a government unit, and as all government units, they think that money is no object and there is more where that money came from. I have to pay my bills and be real careful, and I certainly do not have a bottomless source of money. Government units are blind to the concept.

TC has the task of actually making this into rule. Before you make it into a rule, you have to get this through what is called the CARAC process, which is consultation with industry before rules are actually made.

And you can see where the complications are created.

Sad to say, one bunch of civil servants lobbing mud to another bunch of civil servants, and none of them have little to zero clue about the realities of life. But hey, they get paid and they have their pensions and life for them goes on. More taxpayer sourced money is always available.

In the meantime, people doing real work in real time, that would be industry......well.......too bad.......do as I say, do not do as I do.........

I would be nice to see public servants in this country make reality based decisions, my experiences indicate that they live in a utopic and theoretical world.

[J.O.]

IMHO, your level of cynicism completely kills your credibility.

[JV]

Pre 2001 ish, thought that everyone and everybody was so fine and good and all was just as it should be with the world.. Just like everyone else. Had my little airplane job, lived my life. No issues.
Was certainly not expecting what came later. Not even close, was expecting a fine and good world as it should be.
That is not what happened, and if you have a problem with the harsh realities of life, well, you have a problem with the harsh realities of life.
I wish I had never encountered what I had encountered.
I tell it like it is. No agendas here.
Never gave much attention to a lot of those things you hear about on the news before, considered it to be a bunch of innuendo. Too bad for me, and I really did not need this, well, saw a small slice of what it is really all about...........
I wish I can live in your world.

[JV]

Originally Posted by evansb

Okay, to get back on track, this thread is about the mandatory installation of light weight basic FDRs (flight data recorders) on a Cessna Caravan or a Navajo to aid/quicken crash investigations. Please correct me if it is intended for light turbine types only. The proposition is NOT to aid safety, but primarily to quicken crash investigation conclusions. Prove me wrong. An increase in "safety" i.e. a reduction of incidents and crashes, would be purely incidental to the mandatory installation of a light weight basic FDR, (Flight Data Recorder) to a certain level of commercial aircraft. An FDR on a Navajo? Really? A robust GoPro camera would probably work just fine.

As an aside, why does almost every Canadian thread denigrate to an anti-union, public servant bash-athon? (not a real word)

Comedian George Carlin once quipped that he will no longer vote in any election, because he realized that politicians (and public servants) are people just like himself, his friends and his relatives, i.e. lairs, thieves, hypocrites, proxy parents and adulterers. Nor do they dust, vacuum, clean the toilet bowl, nor will they willingly put away the dishes, yet they complain about the neighbors, and are cynical about today's youth. "Why would I elect that kind of person?" "Why will I not vote?...because they're exactly like myself !".

Very good.....never quite had the literary talent to lay down the realities of life in a way that would not garner scorn from the true believers. So thanks. You can bet that I would much rather prefer to live in a world of unicorns and mother teresa's. I have seen otherwise. Gotta call a spade a spade at some point.

Anyways, it would be nice to have top shelf fdr's in every flying machine just because.......It would also be nice to have only electric cars on the planet.

Who pays for this? I would love to afford an electric car, there is no way my income could even dare to consider it.

[roybert]

JV
Anyone who can afford to buy a twin engine aircraft isn't going to be arguing over the cost to install a FDR. And yes the costs to install one after the fact might climb up but still a worthwhile piece of tech.

[Mostly Harmless]

Would a Cessna 152 or 172 operated by a flight school or flying club also have to carry an FDR? They are commercially registered and maintained aircraft. Not trying to stir any pots, just wondering if there is a limit to the suggestion or not.

[Pilot DAR]

Installing an orange box, in and of itself, in an aircraft, is probably cost manageable. Buying the box? Not my area of expertise. However, with present technology for legacy aircraft systems, connecting the orange box to the aircraft systems for data gathering could become very costly. Of course, for any operator who considers it worthwhile, nothing prevents undertaking to work voluntarily as a modification.

Enabling investigation ease with the provision of FDR data post accident is one thing, perhaps devoting that large cost per aircraft to pilot refresher training instead would be more beneficial as being preventative. For those few "mystery" cause all fatal accidents there is likely common agreement that increased pilot skill and recency might have prevented, or at least minimized the severity of the event.

At present, TC Aircraft Certification branch cannot keep up with the demand for modification design approvals. Suddenly requiring a large group of aircraft to be modified with and FDR system would completely overwhelm the industry - and TC Aircraft Certification branch knows this. It's nice for the TSB to float the idea, but even they should be able to understand that it cannot be accomplished.

As the costs to fly increase, pilots will fly less. New pilots will not be able to afford to accumulate the experience we once did. So I guess its a good thing that at least some of these lesser experienced pilots entering the commercial world may go into the right seat of aircraft for which an FDR is already installed.

[JV]

Originally Posted by roybert

JV
Anyone who can afford to buy a twin engine aircraft isn't going to be arguing over the cost to install a FDR. And yes the costs to install one after the fact might climb up but still a worthwhile piece of tech.

Happy that pilotDAR made his statement. Hey, I would love nothing more than live in a perfect world where all tools were available at all times to enhance the wellbeing of everybody.

Back to my unicorn and mother theresa analogy, real life does not work that way. As pilotDAR indicated, that orange box in a what, 40 or 50 year old airplane, which now costs peanuts, is an unrealistic expectation financially, it would cost huge money for that orange box with all of the specialized applications of non ADC driven systems to be incorporated in such things as navajos. Might as well change airframes, which these operators probably could not afford anyway, which means that a segment of aviation disappears. Because of cost. Because of an orange box.

Maybe that is the way aviation is going? Big airlines and military only? No general aviation? Seen it in third world countries where there is in fact only a state owned airline and a military, both funded by taxpayer money, and international debt. With the conspicuous absence of private capital, no matter how small it may be.

I would love to impart a view of reasonableness and rationality within the ranks of the public service. My experience indicates a disconnected world where money is no object, so they think money is no object for anyone else. You only need to turn on the news, or look at your iphone and listen or read the stuff that is out there for the consumption of the general public.

[J.O.]

There are options available for less sophisticated aircraft that don’t cost tens of thousands of dollars. They may not sample airspeed and altitude every 1/4 of a second but they provide enough data to answer many of the questions in a situation like the Kelowna crash at issue here.

[ICT_SLB]

To follow up what J.O. said, the French equivalent to the TSB, BEA, has done some great reconstructions just using the data from Garmin Nav units. The memory chips within most modern electronics can withstand most crashes unless they're in the middle of an intense post-crash fire - I'm prepared to bet that you could easily get more meaningful data off a passenger's IPhone than most non-digital FDRs.

[A Squared]

I think those saying that it's going to be relatively inexpensive to put an FDR in a Navajo are fooling themselves and haven't really considered what would be involved. This isn't simply a case of ordering the correct FDR, fabricating a 9g mounting bracket for it, hooking up power and "Bob's your uncle!". Consider the case of a Navajo with mechanical gyro instruments. Other than pressure altitude and GPS derived position, altitude and groundspeed, I can't think of a single parameter of interest which would exist in such an airplane in the form of digital electronic data. And those exceptions I mentioned would not have not provided much more meaningful information in the accident at hand, beyond what TSB already had in the form of radar data. That means that for each and every single parameter of interest, you will have to install some kind of sensor, transducer or encoder in the airplane whcih allows the measurement of that parameter. You want throttle position recorded? OK, you'll have to engineer a throttle position sensor to be installed somewhere in the throttle linkage. You want elevator deflection recorded? Well, you need to engineer an elevator position sensor and install it somewhere in the pitch control system. So every measured parameter is going to involve a modification of the airframe and the control system. The cost of just the installation of the equipment is going to add up quickly, but that's not the only cost, there's going to be the cost of design and certification. Every on of these FDRs will have to be installed under an STC, and the STC's are going to be specific to the model of the aircraft. The STC for a navajo isn't going to allow installation in a Caravan, each individual model added to the STC will have to individually go through the certification process for that model of aircraft. And the certification process is not going to be simple or cheap. These are modifications of the aircraft's primary flight control system. The process for certification of modifications to the primary flight control system will be (and should be) pretty rigorous. You can substitute "expensive" for "rigorous". There will be a significant pot of money sunk into the certification process, and those costs will have to be recovered in the sale of units. And if you want to sell an FDR for a Cessna 402, you will have to do most of that all over again. How many Navajos are operated commercially in Canada? That number is the number of sales the considerable development costs will have to be amortized over. So take all those costs of engineering, flight test, design review, fees to Designated Engineering Representatives (or whatever the Canadian equivalent is) and all the other costs of pushing through certification the modification of aircraft primary flight controls. Add them all up, and divide by the number of Navajos operating commercially in Canada. That in the amount of money that has to be added on top of the cost of manufacturing the actual equipment. That's just the price you pay to get the equipment dropped off at your hangar, that's before you start paying your mechanic to install the equipment.

Those claiming that this won't cost "tens of thousands of dollars" are simply delusional. Yes it will cost tens of thousands of dollars, many tens of thousands of collars.

[J.O.]

Reasonable data can be collected from a box that has gyroscopic sensors and a GPS link. My company has installed such recorders in several aircraft that have mechanical flight instruments and engine gauges. It wasn't an absolute necessity but we added engine monitoring capabilities because of the nature of our work. One of these recorders helped the TSB to understand an accident that had no obvious cause.

[777AV8R]

Responsability...

Originally Posted by J.O.

Reasonable data can be collected from a box that has gyroscopic sensors and a GPS link. My company has installed such recorders in several aircraft that have mechanical flight instruments and engine gauges. It wasn't an absolute necessity but we added engine monitoring capabilities because of the nature of our work. One of these recorders helped the TSB to understand an accident that had no obvious cause.

J.O., it sounds like you have a very responsible operation. Its operators who have that kind of thinking and leadership in the industry who will stand the test of time.

[A Squared]

Originally Posted by J.O.

Reasonable data can be collected from a box that has gyroscopic sensors and a GPS link.

Sure, a GPS logging device can probably be installed for a fairly reasonable price. However, in the incident at hand, TSB had fairly detailed position altitude, track airspeed,and vertical speed information available, and they are saying that they need flight data recorders to investigate accidents of this nature. I didn't see a description of that data they are recommending, but it's pretty clear from the context hat they mean more than position altitude, track airspeed,and vertical speed information.

[J.O.]

Originally Posted by 777AV8R

J.O., it sounds like you have a very responsible operation. Its operators who have that kind of thinking and leadership in the industry who will stand the test of time.

Much appreciated. It is some of that but also past experience with preventable accidents. Our work is done in some pretty challenging conditions and it's important to have a good handle on where we stand relative to the margins.

[Pilot DAR]

So take all those costs of engineering, flight test, design review, fees to Designated Engineering Representatives (or whatever the Canadian equivalent is)

= Design Approval Representative (DAR) in Canada.

Those claiming that this won't cost "tens of thousands of dollars" are simply delusional. Yes it will cost tens of thousands of dollars, many tens of thousands of collars.

Correct. Worse, there will be delays of years getting around to approving each of these type specific installations. The approval process is operating near capacity now, an industry wide program for such installation approvals would be unsustainable in operator's perception of reasonable time lines.