3 ms·

$75,000 for a satellite black box plus $3-$5/minute to send the data? Just screw one of these onto the plane: http://www.findmespot.com/en/index.php?cid=102 h

$75,000 for a satellite black box plus $3-$5/minute to send the data? Just screw one of these onto the plane: http://www.findmespot.com/en/index.php?cid=102 http://www.findmespot.com/en/index.php?cid=102 $170 + $99/year for the data plan. They would have a much better idea of where the real black box landed for a trivial cost.

olegk 16y ago
Does it work at 1000 MPH? Plus they are talking about voice data, not just the coordinates.
- asmithmd1 16y ago
  I am just countering the airlines straw-man argument that a solution will cost >$50,000 For about 0.5% of that cost they could have a solution that will help people find the real blackbox.
  - notahacker 16y ago
    Commercial airliners have many existing systems that'll tell you where they are. The problem is they tend not to continue working effectively 3000m below sea level after the aircraft has broken up. Neither do cheap GPS tracker systems. The airlines' cost argument against investing in the technology is actually based on exactly the argument you're making: black boxes are usually very easy to locate.
quanticle 16y ago
Well, its not an add-on to the existing black-box systems, its a replacement. These new black boxes are supposed to gather more data about more components. Given that, the $75,000 price tag makes sense. The $3-$5 per minute data cost also makes sense if you think of the black boxes as transmitting full real-time telemetry and voice recordings. However, that cost is incurred only after manual activation by the pilot or after a mechanical emergency is detected. Most of the time, the boxes will only be transmitting a "heartbeat" signal, which costs much less to transmit.
- a-priori 16y ago
  Why does it need to be a replacement? It makes more sense to me that flight data recorders should keep their current job: to record detailed flight data, and keep it safe in the event of a crash. This should be a new device that operates in parallel with the FDR on the same data.

olegk 16y ago

Does it work at 1000 MPH? Plus they are talking about voice data, not just the coordinates.

asmithmd1 16y ago
I am just countering the airlines straw-man argument that a solution will cost >$50,000 For about 0.5% of that cost they could have a solution that will help people find the real blackbox.
- notahacker 16y ago
  Commercial airliners have many existing systems that'll tell you where they are. The problem is they tend not to continue working effectively 3000m below sea level after the aircraft has broken up. Neither do cheap GPS tracker systems. The airlines' cost argument against investing in the technology is actually based on exactly the argument you're making: black boxes are usually very easy to locate.

quanticle 16y ago

Well, its not an add-on to the existing black-box systems, its a replacement. These new black boxes are supposed to gather more data about more components. Given that, the $75,000 price tag makes sense. The $3-$5 per minute data cost also makes sense if you think of the black boxes as transmitting full real-time telemetry and voice recordings. However, that cost is incurred only after manual activation by the pilot or after a mechanical emergency is detected. Most of the time, the boxes will only be transmitting a "heartbeat" signal, which costs much less to transmit.

a-priori 16y ago
Why does it need to be a replacement? It makes more sense to me that flight data recorders should keep their current job: to record detailed flight data, and keep it safe in the event of a crash. This should be a new device that operates in parallel with the FDR on the same data.