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It's truly mind boggling that airlines don't do this. Given the cost of an aircraft and the value it represents, surely the data cost is more than worth it. I h

It's truly mind boggling that airlines don't do this. Given the cost of an aircraft and the value it represents, surely the data cost is more than worth it. I hope MH370 has changed the mindset of airlines and aircraft manufacturers. I know that pilots are against live streaming, always on voice recorders in the cockpit due to privacy concerns but surely there are ways to regulate access to that (eg: it goes to the safety regulator of the airline's country of governance and is held for 48 hours, released only if an accident occurs). I don't put a server into staging use let alone production use without having comprehensive monitoring in place for CPU, memory, etc. Putting a $200mm+ aircraft in the sky without monitoring every single thing in real time with multiple layers of redundancy seems unbelievably insane.

shpx 10y ago
Royls Royce sends performance data of its jet engines over satellites. https://youtu.be/_30T6MqdSlw?t=43m19s https://youtu.be/_30T6MqdSlw?t=43m19s
- ant6n 10y ago
  Wasn't that used to try to track that Malaysian plane that got lost?
  - vdernov 10y ago
    Yes, via Inmarsat data.
jsprogrammer 10y ago
>Given the cost of an aircraft and the value it represents, surely the data cost is more than worth it. How does broadcasting to a satellite reduce current or future costs?
- justinclift 10y ago
  As an initial thought, being able to much more accurately locate missing aircraft sounds like it would be a cost saving. eg: * the many months/years of effort + associated resources for searching would be likely reduced * technical/procedural weaknesses that led to aircraft loss could be better analysed, hopefully leading to reduced further aircraft losses, reduced loss of life Realtime data (other than location) sounds like it would have uses too. Not just alerting for impending or actual failure. On the other hand, would doing this open up potential remote vulnerabilities for aircraft systems? That could have long term crappy-ness attached. :(
  - ryanlol 10y ago
    >On the other hand, would doing this open up potential remote vulnerabilities for aircraft systems? That could have long term crappy-ness attached. :( Why should it?
    - justinclift 10y ago
      If the software that does the sending has vulnerabilities in it, that would be bad. Although we can all think of approaches to try to minimise/exclude that possibility... reality often has ways of showing up things people didn't think of. :(
      - xufi 10y ago
        What software would that be that the flight recorder box is running? I've always wanted to know. I've heard the OS Is some variation of a Linux distro
        pseingatl 10y ago
        Not in the 1980's.
      - PeterisP 10y ago
        Why would a transmit-only device expose any vulnerabilities in its software? It shouldn't have the physical capability to receive any remote signals, much less act in any way in response to them.
- dave2000 10y ago
  The point of this data is to understand why planes crash (or how were hijacked) so that design faults, defects and crew procedures can be altered to prevent them happening again.
  - throwaway_xx9 10y ago
    Not many airliners are lost, so how is your pedantic answer relevant to to answering the question about cost?
- lallysingh 10y ago
  It's a cheap win on the customer service front, when a plane goes down.
stevep98 10y ago
> It's truly mind boggling that airlines don't do this. They don't do it because they don't need the data. Governments do, for when they need to do search and rescue. So, governments should make it a requirement. For a manager making a decision in an airline whether or not to use this service, he would have to justify the cost to the airline. If none of his competitors are using it, then he's just got an unnecessary cost which the airline has to eat or pass on the cost to the customer. The way around this is to make it a requirement for all airlines. Then everybody has to eat the cost. You may not be aware but there is an effort in the United States to move aircraft from primarily radar-based Air Traffic Control to GPS-based. This requires all planes to be equipped with additional equipment to transmit their location, and there is a mechanism to transmit via satellite. It's just not a requirement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_dependent_surveillance_%E2%80%93_broadcast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_dependent_surveillan...
- sokoloff 10y ago
  > This requires all planes to be equipped with additional equipment to transmit their location ADS-B (out) is not required for all planes, even after 2020. It's only required in class A, B, C, and some E, basically "wherever transponders are required today". There will be a significant fraction of the GA fleet that will not equip.
- jsjohnst 10y ago
  Except ADS-B is a shit show. Watch this video [1] and tell me if you really want to still trust it over radar. [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CXv1j3GbgLk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CXv1j3GbgLk
  - sokoloff 10y ago
    For Center (high-altitude en route) operations, ADS-B is fantastic. Random, direct routing becomes much more possible, because there's an electronic box giving people the warm fuzzy feeling. (The "it's a big sky" theory would also work perfectly well here, but people feel better with a semblance of active control.) There are no plans to shutdown all ground radio based systems. Right now, to file a flight plan in "bad" weather, either your intended airport or your alternate airport must have a legal approach that does not require GPS.
WalterBright 10y ago
They should also install cockpit video recorders. A lot of accidents will be much easier to reconstruct what went wrong with such. For example, it could confirm who was at the controls, and if there was a struggle going on.
ams6110 10y ago
Typically plane crashes are very rare events. Even more rare are crashes from crusing altitude over water. MH370 doesn't change that. So if the proposal is to add new equipment to every aircraft in service, that is compared to the very rare cost of having to recover a data recorder, and the even more rare cost of having to recover it from underwater. Airlines don't see that as an economic tradeoff that makes sense.

shpx 10y ago

Royls Royce sends performance data of its jet engines over satellites. https://youtu.be/_30T6MqdSlw?t=43m19s https://youtu.be/_30T6MqdSlw?t=43m19s

ant6n 10y ago
Wasn't that used to try to track that Malaysian plane that got lost?
- vdernov 10y ago
  Yes, via Inmarsat data.

jsprogrammer 10y ago

>Given the cost of an aircraft and the value it represents, surely the data cost is more than worth it. How does broadcasting to a satellite reduce current or future costs?

justinclift 10y ago
As an initial thought, being able to much more accurately locate missing aircraft sounds like it would be a cost saving. eg: * the many months/years of effort + associated resources for searching would be likely reduced * technical/procedural weaknesses that led to aircraft loss could be better analysed, hopefully leading to reduced further aircraft losses, reduced loss of life Realtime data (other than location) sounds like it would have uses too. Not just alerting for impending or actual failure. On the other hand, would doing this open up potential remote vulnerabilities for aircraft systems? That could have long term crappy-ness attached. :(
- ryanlol 10y ago
  >On the other hand, would doing this open up potential remote vulnerabilities for aircraft systems? That could have long term crappy-ness attached. :( Why should it?
  - justinclift 10y ago
    If the software that does the sending has vulnerabilities in it, that would be bad. Although we can all think of approaches to try to minimise/exclude that possibility... reality often has ways of showing up things people didn't think of. :(
    - xufi 10y ago
      What software would that be that the flight recorder box is running? I've always wanted to know. I've heard the OS Is some variation of a Linux distro
      - pseingatl 10y ago
        Not in the 1980's.
    - PeterisP 10y ago
      Why would a transmit-only device expose any vulnerabilities in its software? It shouldn't have the physical capability to receive any remote signals, much less act in any way in response to them.
dave2000 10y ago
The point of this data is to understand why planes crash (or how were hijacked) so that design faults, defects and crew procedures can be altered to prevent them happening again.
- throwaway_xx9 10y ago
  Not many airliners are lost, so how is your pedantic answer relevant to to answering the question about cost?
lallysingh 10y ago
It's a cheap win on the customer service front, when a plane goes down.

stevep98 10y ago

> It's truly mind boggling that airlines don't do this. They don't do it because they don't need the data. Governments do, for when they need to do search and rescue. So, governments should make it a requirement. For a manager making a decision in an airline whether or not to use this service, he would have to justify the cost to the airline. If none of his competitors are using it, then he's just got an unnecessary cost which the airline has to eat or pass on the cost to the customer. The way around this is to make it a requirement for all airlines. Then everybody has to eat the cost. You may not be aware but there is an effort in the United States to move aircraft from primarily radar-based Air Traffic Control to GPS-based. This requires all planes to be equipped with additional equipment to transmit their location, and there is a mechanism to transmit via satellite. It's just not a requirement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_dependent_surveillance_%E2%80%93_broadcast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_dependent_surveillan...

sokoloff 10y ago
> This requires all planes to be equipped with additional equipment to transmit their location ADS-B (out) is not required for all planes, even after 2020. It's only required in class A, B, C, and some E, basically "wherever transponders are required today". There will be a significant fraction of the GA fleet that will not equip.
jsjohnst 10y ago
Except ADS-B is a shit show. Watch this video [1] and tell me if you really want to still trust it over radar. [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CXv1j3GbgLk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CXv1j3GbgLk
- sokoloff 10y ago
  For Center (high-altitude en route) operations, ADS-B is fantastic. Random, direct routing becomes much more possible, because there's an electronic box giving people the warm fuzzy feeling. (The "it's a big sky" theory would also work perfectly well here, but people feel better with a semblance of active control.) There are no plans to shutdown all ground radio based systems. Right now, to file a flight plan in "bad" weather, either your intended airport or your alternate airport must have a legal approach that does not require GPS.

WalterBright 10y ago

They should also install cockpit video recorders. A lot of accidents will be much easier to reconstruct what went wrong with such. For example, it could confirm who was at the controls, and if there was a struggle going on.

ams6110 10y ago

Typically plane crashes are very rare events. Even more rare are crashes from crusing altitude over water. MH370 doesn't change that. So if the proposal is to add new equipment to every aircraft in service, that is compared to the very rare cost of having to recover a data recorder, and the even more rare cost of having to recover it from underwater. Airlines don't see that as an economic tradeoff that makes sense.