I've watched all the episodes of Aviation Disasters. The device missing from cockpits is the video recorder. Many investigations revolve around questions like what is the pilot looking at, what the instruments show, even who the heck is in the pilot's seat. Video can confirm switch settings and instrument readouts (the voice recorder is also used to confirm if the warning horns sounded properly).
Instead, a lot of effort goes into trying to reconstruct this.
Just put a dang video camera in the cockpit.
I've also, for decades, advocated a camera that records flight operations at an airport. Just stick a couple in the tower pointed at the runways. Note that in the Concorde disaster, there was no video of the take-off. They had to rely on eyewitness testimony, which is notoriously unreliable. The only video came later from some passenger in a car who happened to have a video cam at hand. That accidental video proved valuable. (It's a horrifying video.)
I was surprised at all the vitriol opposition to pointing a camera at the runways. People confidently told me it would cost millions of dollars, and was completely infeasible. Jeez, anyone could buy a security camera that recorded on a loop for a few hundred. Every convenience store had them.
Couple of issues here; the first and foremost - recording people at their workplace. We can all argue how privacy is unreasonable in public but recording let alone pilots but anyone continuously at work will receive big pushback.
Also video occupies much more data than most other streams of information stored on blackbox. This coupled with the fact that anything aviation related takes decades to get into widespread use and it was only quite recently that solid state storage became so dense and ubiquitous.
Video surveillance at airports is getting more widespread, just search for SFO asiana.
> Jeez, anyone could buy a security camera that recorded on a loop for a few hundred.
It probably isn't that easy, at least for the runways. Remember that Uber crash where they tried to convince everyone that the cyclist was near impossible to see? The dash cam used to record that video was standard, but also completely unable to handle even a well lit road at night. Good cameras and the weather proofing they need out in the open (they should still work after a snow storm) will cost a lot more, probably not infeasible but still a decent amount of cash.
Although I don't necessarily disagree with your arguments, using security cameras on the tower would probably give you very little : the distances are huge.
Imagine the footage of the average shop robbery, which most of the time is already useless. And UFOs.
It would be less useful than you’d think. Pilots are trained to articulate what they are doing and generally follow very well-practiced procedures. Another pilot can quite accurately reproduce what a pilot is doing just from the transcript, and the warning horns and other indicators are quite expressive of other things. The audio is good enough to hear breakers opening. Anything a video camera could see out the window that would be relevant will be remarked upon by pilots.
I have no doubt that it would cost millions. If it's important enough to do, it's important enough to spend extra on a (supposedly) reliable and secure system with some massive 24/7 maintenance contract. Unlike convenience store cameras that can just use off-the-shelf products and still deter criminals by just being there even when broken.
If I was a pilot I'd hate to be constantly surveilled by a camera, even if the footage is "never reviewed". In fact, it's got nothing to do with being a pilot.
Dude, every single mishap since airplanes became reliable was pilot error at the root. It's never not pilot error. The FAA is a jobs program, similar to the old TVA, and note that all mechanics and pilots are still unionized. Governments have ensured that there will be no meaningful innovation in air breathing aviation, hence the space race...go ABOVE the bureaucrats.
Wow. History hasn't been kind. As is often the case around limited-mindset thinking.
From TFA:
"civil authorities said that “Dr Warren’s instrument has little immediate direct use in civil aircraft.” The Royal Australian Air Force likewise decided that “such a device is not required—the recorder would yield more expletives than explanations.”
Well. No. Multiple air crashes across the world relied on recordings as a key part of their investigation. Especially when a plane lands in the Hudson, just to name one example.
This is very telling:
"Most damning was the Federation of Air Pilots, which declared that the device would be like “a spy flying alongside—no plane would take off in Australia with Big Brother listening.”
History wasn't kind here either. Just try and take off in a jet from a commercial airliner without the various safety equipment installed. The insurance companies alone will try to eat you alive, let alone every other agency.
There's definitely a repeating theme around safety equipment and authority/authority figures. The ridicule at the start is definitely a common starting point. Seat belts and air bags were both ridiculous inventions. Then they weren't. Then they became required.
Quote from elsewhere and not necessarily about flight recorders:
"It has been said that any new idea must pass through three stages. First, it is ridiculed; second, it is subject to argument: third, it is accepted. The safety idea has reached the final stage. It is accepted." -- Earl B. Morgan, journal of Safety Engineering, 1917
I guess one possible explanation is that having a black box in your plane is not useful to you, only for other people after you die. Pushing for the idea requires accepting you are going to screw up and some people will think that your job is preventing the airplane from crashing in the first place. It's obviously useful in the long term from a societal perspective, not from a short-term and individual point of view.
First They Ignore You, Then They Laugh at You, Then They Attack You, Then You Win.
"The statement evolved from a large family of sayings that originated in the nineteenth century. In 1918 a closely similar remark emerged in a speech by Nicholas Klein, a union representative. Gandhi discussed stages that a movement passes through in a collection of writings he published in 1921, but his words did not really match the target expression."
Yes. You can find the same kind of bs regarding safety belts in cars, ABS, airbags and so on. The part where I'm seeing a difference is when safety gear starts to actively interfere with operating the vehicle.
Marc Andreessen describes his experiences seeking funding for Netscape as a disaster, particularly among the telecom giants of the age who had a potential stake in related businesses. Nobody thought the web or a web browser were worth investing in. Who would ever use those?
The moral of these stories is that originality scares the shit of people. Good ideas are not immediately apparent.
This inventor is probably joined by many others before him that had the same idea, were shrugged off and did not have the tenacity to follow up despite that. Another example for what is common wisdom: Execution is everything.
The myth of the inventor-founder is something from the industrual age. Interesting how it still persists.
This is not a myth, but History recording real facts that happened.
Anyone can imagine a "flying car" or a "nuclear fusion reactor". It is a completely different thing having and putting the resources to work: the people, the effort, the money and the time to make something real.
Someone just "having an idea" only works in science fiction, and even there you need to do the work of writing the book, or drawing the comic.
"Execution is everything" is always true after the fact. Good and bad ideas are treated with disdain because that is how people are. Until a random person gets profit from execution, then is praised for the profit, because people desire and envy profit.
If there is a myth here, it is that it matters who executed it first. It's random.
Why is it a myth? Whenever I read about the founding of a big name company there's very often a significant innovation that it's initially premised on.
Disney - animated feature length film with sound, dogged vision of founder
Post / Kelloggs - invention of breakfast cereal, invented by founder (Kellogg's invention stolen by Post)
Carnegie steel - bridge prototype, highly risky and innovative endeavor
Ford - division of labor
Mars - caramel and nougat in chocolate, innovation over Hersheys' plain chocolate, invented by founder
Well if this idea can't survive being dropped, it's not much good is it? Sorry...
> Interestingly, modern flight data recorders are required to have an underwater locator beacon that pulses once per second at 37.5 kilohertz for 30 days and is supposed to be detectable at depths of at least 14,000 feet (4,267 meters). But they don’t have comparable beacons for crashes on land.
After Japan Airlines Flight 123, that is shocking to me.
But the reason you need underwater beacons in particular is that the water absorbs RF signals, so you'll actually use acoustic beacons underwater. Such a device would be useless above the water since air is so much less dense.
The last sentences about uploading data to the cloud had not struck me before. It is such an obvious development, if not to replace so to complement. But perhaps there are challenges around it that are not obvious?
A plane more often has access to an atmospheric cloud than to a computing cloud, especially when flying over an ocean. Maybe Starlink could offer reasonable connectivity, even if intermittent.
I had no idea that was how recordings were (or at least could) be made at the time. Of course it makes sense-- early use of magnetic tape was something like nickel coated bronze, so there's no reason a wire couldn't also work.
Just a bit of electronics history I wasn't aware of that I thought interesting.
I think part of the reason for using wire was for fire proofing. The recording would be salvageable even after intense fires.
Later recorders used plastic tape but also have a water vessel. As the water boils it keeps the interior from going above 100C - until it boils away. The recorders are rated for maybe 30-60 minutes of direct exposure.
Recent recorders use solid state storage and, still, water to keep the internal temperature lower.
My idea was to make a lot of small transponders on the outside of a plane, that detach when in contact with seawater. And a few on long cables so that you could track that cable to the plane part.
Those transponders could also have micro-sd cards with data on them.
I wonder how soon a car would be able to publish its metrics, like speed, motor rpm, data from ABS and brakes, etc via a protected Bluetooth channel, so that a dashcam or a phone could keep recording it, like the black box.
It kind of makes sense. If you had a high stakes job (human life, say a surgeon) and your boss wanted to record your every action, what would you think?
I think the FAA’s approach of “we do accident investigations so we learn, not to blame” went pretty far in making the idea more acceptable.
Good thing this idea didn’t go down in flames. (Sorry).
Looking back, almost every great idea I’ve had has received negative support from people around me, who either didn’t understand it or had their own plans for me.
There’s an interesting aside in that neither a CVR nor a FDR would have been helpful in figuring out the cause of the Comet disasters. The way they did was brilliant.
Probably a mix of: reserving supply of electronic components to military use; eliminating a possible cover story for spies; emission control to deny enemy navigation cues; limiting vectors for accidental information disclosure; creating an atmosphere of ‘We’re all engaged in this all out struggle together’; wartime bureaucratic expansion and overreach; and just generally more important things going on.
The black box has worked well for all in Common Law countries.
In countries with French-style law, that might be different for pilots. (Essentially you're guilty until proven innocent, and they hire a retired judge with nothing better to do except to drag out the hearings (and fees) until they die.)
However the scale has tipped recently in the US with a central pilot records database being created recently. So at every step of your career, you're recorded and tracked. If an employer doesn't like you, they can scribble whatever they want in your permanent government record now.
So before a pilot candidate spends $200,000 on a college education and pilot training, they need to think about both losing their medical at any time, and what will happen if their airline decides to fire them and give them a hard time.
In Roman law you're also innocent until proven guilty - and the unwritten law in most countries is that prosecution doesn't get to access accident investigation materials and has to order their own experts every time.
[+] [-] WalterBright|4 years ago|reply
Instead, a lot of effort goes into trying to reconstruct this.
Just put a dang video camera in the cockpit.
I've also, for decades, advocated a camera that records flight operations at an airport. Just stick a couple in the tower pointed at the runways. Note that in the Concorde disaster, there was no video of the take-off. They had to rely on eyewitness testimony, which is notoriously unreliable. The only video came later from some passenger in a car who happened to have a video cam at hand. That accidental video proved valuable. (It's a horrifying video.)
I was surprised at all the vitriol opposition to pointing a camera at the runways. People confidently told me it would cost millions of dollars, and was completely infeasible. Jeez, anyone could buy a security camera that recorded on a loop for a few hundred. Every convenience store had them.
[+] [-] zeusk|4 years ago|reply
Also video occupies much more data than most other streams of information stored on blackbox. This coupled with the fact that anything aviation related takes decades to get into widespread use and it was only quite recently that solid state storage became so dense and ubiquitous.
Video surveillance at airports is getting more widespread, just search for SFO asiana.
[+] [-] josefx|4 years ago|reply
It probably isn't that easy, at least for the runways. Remember that Uber crash where they tried to convince everyone that the cyclist was near impossible to see? The dash cam used to record that video was standard, but also completely unable to handle even a well lit road at night. Good cameras and the weather proofing they need out in the open (they should still work after a snow storm) will cost a lot more, probably not infeasible but still a decent amount of cash.
[+] [-] the-dude|4 years ago|reply
Imagine the footage of the average shop robbery, which most of the time is already useless. And UFOs.
[+] [-] ajarmst|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unishark|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bruce343434|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gaucho32|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kwdc|4 years ago|reply
From TFA: "civil authorities said that “Dr Warren’s instrument has little immediate direct use in civil aircraft.” The Royal Australian Air Force likewise decided that “such a device is not required—the recorder would yield more expletives than explanations.”
Well. No. Multiple air crashes across the world relied on recordings as a key part of their investigation. Especially when a plane lands in the Hudson, just to name one example.
This is very telling:
"Most damning was the Federation of Air Pilots, which declared that the device would be like “a spy flying alongside—no plane would take off in Australia with Big Brother listening.”
History wasn't kind here either. Just try and take off in a jet from a commercial airliner without the various safety equipment installed. The insurance companies alone will try to eat you alive, let alone every other agency.
There's definitely a repeating theme around safety equipment and authority/authority figures. The ridicule at the start is definitely a common starting point. Seat belts and air bags were both ridiculous inventions. Then they weren't. Then they became required.
Quote from elsewhere and not necessarily about flight recorders: "It has been said that any new idea must pass through three stages. First, it is ridiculed; second, it is subject to argument: third, it is accepted. The safety idea has reached the final stage. It is accepted." -- Earl B. Morgan, journal of Safety Engineering, 1917
[+] [-] linspace|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] belter|4 years ago|reply
Howard Aiken
[+] [-] robertlagrant|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] accountLost|4 years ago|reply
"The statement evolved from a large family of sayings that originated in the nineteenth century. In 1918 a closely similar remark emerged in a speech by Nicholas Klein, a union representative. Gandhi discussed stages that a movement passes through in a collection of writings he published in 1921, but his words did not really match the target expression."
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/08/13/stages/
[+] [-] snowwrestler|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacquesm|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] the-dude|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickthemagicman|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] femto|4 years ago|reply
https://www.wsj.com/media/072310pod05.jpg
[+] [-] robertlagrant|4 years ago|reply
Reviewer: drop it.
Inventor: this is a safety feature that will allow us to iterate plane design and save thousands of lives in the future!
Reviewer: drop it.
Inventor: this is extremely important for the future of aviation!
Reviewer: drop it.
Inventor: I WILL NOT storms off
Reviewer: I just meant...show that it won't break? Never mind.
[+] [-] austincheney|4 years ago|reply
The moral of these stories is that originality scares the shit of people. Good ideas are not immediately apparent.
[+] [-] kken|4 years ago|reply
The myth of the inventor-founder is something from the industrual age. Interesting how it still persists.
[+] [-] bumbada|4 years ago|reply
Anyone can imagine a "flying car" or a "nuclear fusion reactor". It is a completely different thing having and putting the resources to work: the people, the effort, the money and the time to make something real.
Someone just "having an idea" only works in science fiction, and even there you need to do the work of writing the book, or drawing the comic.
[+] [-] inigojonesguy|4 years ago|reply
If there is a myth here, it is that it matters who executed it first. It's random.
[+] [-] fighterpilot|4 years ago|reply
Disney - animated feature length film with sound, dogged vision of founder
Post / Kelloggs - invention of breakfast cereal, invented by founder (Kellogg's invention stolen by Post)
Carnegie steel - bridge prototype, highly risky and innovative endeavor
Ford - division of labor
Mars - caramel and nougat in chocolate, innovation over Hersheys' plain chocolate, invented by founder
Google - pagerank, invented by founders
[+] [-] slipframe|4 years ago|reply
> Interestingly, modern flight data recorders are required to have an underwater locator beacon that pulses once per second at 37.5 kilohertz for 30 days and is supposed to be detectable at depths of at least 14,000 feet (4,267 meters). But they don’t have comparable beacons for crashes on land.
After Japan Airlines Flight 123, that is shocking to me.
[+] [-] na85|4 years ago|reply
Well, they do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_position-indicating_...
But the reason you need underwater beacons in particular is that the water absorbs RF signals, so you'll actually use acoustic beacons underwater. Such a device would be useless above the water since air is so much less dense.
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mongol|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nine_k|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] goatinaboat|4 years ago|reply
You might be surprised how scant and expensive bandwidth becomes once you are out of sight of land
[+] [-] ineedasername|4 years ago|reply
I had no idea that was how recordings were (or at least could) be made at the time. Of course it makes sense-- early use of magnetic tape was something like nickel coated bronze, so there's no reason a wire couldn't also work.
Just a bit of electronics history I wasn't aware of that I thought interesting.
[+] [-] quintushoratius|4 years ago|reply
Later recorders used plastic tape but also have a water vessel. As the water boils it keeps the interior from going above 100C - until it boils away. The recorders are rated for maybe 30-60 minutes of direct exposure.
Recent recorders use solid state storage and, still, water to keep the internal temperature lower.
[+] [-] shultays|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tiku|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dukoid|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FooHentai|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nine_k|4 years ago|reply
I wonder how soon a car would be able to publish its metrics, like speed, motor rpm, data from ABS and brakes, etc via a protected Bluetooth channel, so that a dashcam or a phone could keep recording it, like the black box.
[+] [-] Foomf|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] martyvis|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] refurb|4 years ago|reply
I think the FAA’s approach of “we do accident investigations so we learn, not to blame” went pretty far in making the idea more acceptable.
[+] [-] code_duck|4 years ago|reply
Looking back, almost every great idea I’ve had has received negative support from people around me, who either didn’t understand it or had their own plans for me.
[+] [-] ajarmst|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rkachowski|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jameshart|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neonate|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Proven|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] redis_mlc|4 years ago|reply
In countries with French-style law, that might be different for pilots. (Essentially you're guilty until proven innocent, and they hire a retired judge with nothing better to do except to drag out the hearings (and fees) until they die.)
However the scale has tipped recently in the US with a central pilot records database being created recently. So at every step of your career, you're recorded and tracked. If an employer doesn't like you, they can scribble whatever they want in your permanent government record now.
So before a pilot candidate spends $200,000 on a college education and pilot training, they need to think about both losing their medical at any time, and what will happen if their airline decides to fire them and give them a hard time.
[+] [-] p_l|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] markdown|4 years ago|reply
In my country Loss of License insurance removes that as a risk for pilots.