Article on flight MH370 got me thinking....

AtreuS

AtreuS

AtreuS

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So as we know the flight vanished and so far hasn't been found. They can recreate what happened with black box recordings as we know which got me thinking...

With modern communications and improvements in data compressions why don't "black boxes" also transmit flight data to communication satellites on the fly...
stored for a while then deleted? ok maybe not the full voice recordings but certainly telemetry data could easily be sent and then anything goes wrong and you can instantly find out the exact last position and so on.

Is this purely down to costs and will power to do so? surely the tech is there and viable! i mean planes have satellite internet on them.
 
Some of it can be, for example Rolls-Royce remotely monitor in flight engine metrics live, flights can be tracked via satellite, but both these require the airline to pay and since the airline business is ruthless many don't bother.
 
Yes, the capability is there and is used. Some airlines don't want to pay the service charges for data transfer.
If I remember, the Inmarsat data used to try and track MH370 was some sort of handshake/ping type data - the hardware for live diagnostics was all on-board and checking in to the network on the way but didn't have the service enabled to actually transmit the diagnostics data.
 
The number of planes going missing is so Insignificant I'd imagine the costs just aren't really viable. MH370 was the last "big" one and it got so much coverage partially due to the rarity of it.

The important bits of data (IE location) are already transmitted. The rest are just bonuses in the grand scheme of things.
 
Report on BBC news this a.m. about a British aeronautical engineer who thinks he’s located the wreckage.
Richard Godfrey believes the Boeing 777 crashed into the Indian Ocean 2,000km west of Perth, Western Australia.
 
After this happened Inmarsat now offers free tracking to all airlines.

In the case of MH370 the aircraft was capable of sending remote telemetry but the airline didn’t pay for it.
 
I don't think there is any reason in this day and age why the location of every flight should not be known precisely, in real time.

Should be a legal requirement worldwide.
 
Lysander said:
I am so close to putting you on ignore. Why the **** do you stay here then? All you seem to do is moan about the UK. *** off back to France.
Click to expand...

Take it easy pal, think of your blood pressure.
I can’t **** off back anywhere, I’m a citizen of U.K., born and raised in London.
You’re thinking of putting me on ignore?
Oh no, my life is crashing around me, what’s to become of me?
You want to put me on ignore? Knock yourself out.
 
This engineer guy who reckons he has worked out where it went suggests there was a perfect holding pattern off the tip of Sumatra for 22 mins. He offers the possibility that the Captain was bargaining with the Malaysian government to release Anwar. Such wild speculation, this story is so intriguing.
 
arknor said:
Shouldn't they be painted yellow so it's easier to find, black kinda blends in a lot with mud etc
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Not sure if serious.

From memory they're actually bright (life jacket/life raft/high vis vest) orange, just referred to as "black boxes" because that's the old generic term for a sealed box that works in mysterious ways:)
 
Correct bright orange. They do also have a pinging beacon, but this only lasts so long which makes it crucial to locate it ASAP before it becomes very difficult.
 
Jean-F said:
Take it easy pal, think of your blood pressure.
I can’t **** off back anywhere, I’m a citizen of U.K., born and raised in London.
You’re thinking of putting me on ignore?
Oh no, my life is crashing around me, what’s to become of me?
You want to put me on ignore? Knock yourself out.
Click to expand...

I see you do nothing but whinge here, so done. Consider hanging out with cheesefest, you'd get on well :)
 
Werewolf said:
Not sure if serious.

From memory they're actually bright (life jacket/life raft/high vis vest) orange, just referred to as "black boxes" because that's the old generic term for a sealed box that works in mysterious ways:)
Click to expand...
I wasn't really serious, I'm sure they contain a GPS/Transponder or whatever that sends out a signal.

someone had to say it

I imagine they are called "black boxes" because black is seen as a colour associated with bad events or bad things. (Not in a racist way)

and as that song goes "I want to paint it black"

Depression sucks
 
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