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I pointed this out somewhere else, but satellites aren't particularly helpful because you won't be able to transmit to them when you most need it, which is when
by objclxt 13y ago
I pointed this out somewhere else, but satellites aren't particularly helpful because you won't be able to transmit to them when you most need it, which is when there are problems with the plane. It's still highly likely that you're still going to end up with planes going 'off the grid' so to speak.
You could lose power, stopping you from transmitting telemetric data. Or there could be a cabin depressurization or breach that cuts off the antennas (or destroys them entirely). I'm not denying there are benefits to streaming telemetric and flight data continuously for non-major mechanical failures and general analysis - but when we're talking about a catastrophic event that brings down a plane?
In such an event you're going to be sending people to look for the wreckage anyway. Whatever data you're streaming isn't going to tell you the whole story - it'll end up looking exactly like the data does today: perfectly normal, and then nothing. I can see that in a 24 hour news cycle people want to know what happened when it happened. It perhaps understandably freaks people out to learn planes can just 'disappear' without explanation. But streaming telemetric data isn't going to help with that, because the only way we can stream such data over oceans (which make up most of the world's surface area) is with satellites, and they're simply not reliable enough for it to be worth anything.
- Zancarius 13y ago> because the only way we can stream such data over oceans (which make up most of the world's surface area) I think this hits an important point that's lost in the media scuffle that inevitably ensues. Because modern travel has made the world so much smaller, most people have a difficult time trying to fathom precisely how vast the oceans are and that we base our notion of coverage on what familiarities surround us--that is to say: land.
- m4x 13y agoReal time telemetry via satellite could definitely be useful in some situations. The Air France crash could have been prevented if somebody on the ground had taken a look at the data from the plane, realised that the junior pilot has been pulling up the whole time, and made the crew aware of it. That was one of the worst crashes in history and there was never even a problem with the plane. All they needed to save the flight was for somebody to point out that the plane was stalling due to a bad control input by one of the pilots. There are certainly cases where the telemetry link would fail as the aircraft ran into trouble, rendering it useless, but there are undeniably cases where it could save hundreds of lives
- jarek 13y agoPresumably you've read the story of what went on in the AF 447 cockpit - do you suppose adding one more voice to the cacophony of warnings would really have helped? Two seasoned pilots that were in the cockpit didn't fully realize what was happening - there's no guarantee a remote overseer dealing with incomplete and inconsistent data would have either.
- hga 13y agoThat's demanding rather a lot from a human on the ground. The Boeing (and I'm sure others) design philosophy is "unsynchronized joysticks ARE A TERRIBLE IDEA", and if Airbus and Air France had use the normal synchronized yokes, the problem of the brain wedged junior pilot would have been quickly apparent. Can you think of other examples? BTW, it's guessed that iced up pitot tubes caused the autopilot to disengage. You're also assuming the pilots would listen to a kibitzer from afar while struggling to fix their plane. Plus a hell of a lot of expensive technology to support all that. And expensive kibitzers looking over the pilot's shoulders, which the latter wouldn't like.
- m4x 13y agoI agree that a better fix would have been to have synchronised joy sticks, but that doesn't negate the usefulness of telemetry I'm aware that the pitot tubes iced over, but they de-iced long before the point of no return And I bet the pilots would have listened to a 'kibitzer'. The senior pilot actually told the junior one to stop pulling up, knowing it would cause problems, and would presumably have taken control more forcefully if he'd been aware that the junior pilot had resumed pulling up after bein asked to stop. He just didn't know. Better communication, syncd joysticks or telemetry could all have helped make him aware of that.
- gvb 13y agoa) Nobody on the ground knew AF447 was in trouble. The aircraft never broadcast a declaration of an emergency. b) Even if there was telemetry that sent the aircraft control inputs and instrumentation to the ground, with thousands of aircraft in the air, nobody would have been watching AF447's telemetry, waiting for Something Bad to happen. c) It was about four minutes between when the aircraft got in trouble and when it impacted the ocean. Even if the aircraft declared an emergency and someone was able to pull up the telemetry for that flight, it is highly unlikely they would have been able to identify the cause before the aircraft impacted. Ref: http://visual.ly/air-france-flight-447-crash-timeline http://visual.ly/air-france-flight-447-crash-timeline
- SnowProblem 13y agoBut if you were broadcasting location and velocity at all times, even if an aircraft lost power, you could project where the "unplanned water landing" would occur. That seems helpful. I wonder if Google's Project Loon [1] would be of any use here. [1] http://www.google.com/loon/how/ http://www.google.com/loon/how/
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]