4 ms·

Legislation is what set the CVRs at two hours in the first place. §121.359(i)(1) [1] sets the minimum. It should hardly be surprising that these manufacturers d

by davidmr 13y ago

Legislation is what set the CVRs at two hours in the first place. §121.359(i)(1) [1] sets the minimum. It should hardly be surprising that these manufacturers don't exceed it. My strong suspicion is that there's a design that meets the requirements and people aren't putting money into developing better ones until more regulation requires it. Obviously I know nothing about international law, but given how closely developed nations seem to coordinate commercial air travel regulation, I would suspect that changing this would take forever. [1]http://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/121.359 http://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/121.359

grej 13y ago
You're right of course on this being a legislatively driven requirement. This presents an interesting case study on how the sclerotic nature of a legislative (or bureaucratic) process sometimes restricts adoption of beneficial technology.
- marshray 13y ago
  "Floors become ceilings" as they say.
- davidmr 13y ago
  That's certainly true, but you could also make a strong case that flight recorders aren't necessarily a place where you're going to have a race to put as much technology in them as possible. I doubt we'll see a YC startup for this any time soon. I could make the most awesome flight recorder ever seen, but nobody will buy it (speaking of which, who actually buys these? The airline like they do with engines or the manufacturer like they do with, say, the batteries?). They're going to keep buying the Honeywell or the Teledyne one because that's just who they buy recorders from. I can't even fathom what would be the cost to enter this market. The engineering and testing and certification costs must be immense. Even if you do this, I don't think you'd be able to charge a premium for a better product. Imagine yourself as the Boeing 797 project manager: you're hundreds of millions over budget, the shareholders are getting upset, etc. Now your data recorder engineer comes up to you and says "here's a list of data recorders that meet federal and international standards, sorted by price." Which end of the list do you start from?

by davidmr 13y ago

grej 13y ago

You're right of course on this being a legislatively driven requirement. This presents an interesting case study on how the sclerotic nature of a legislative (or bureaucratic) process sometimes restricts adoption of beneficial technology.

marshray 13y ago
"Floors become ceilings" as they say.
davidmr 13y ago
That's certainly true, but you could also make a strong case that flight recorders aren't necessarily a place where you're going to have a race to put as much technology in them as possible. I doubt we'll see a YC startup for this any time soon. I could make the most awesome flight recorder ever seen, but nobody will buy it (speaking of which, who actually buys these? The airline like they do with engines or the manufacturer like they do with, say, the batteries?). They're going to keep buying the Honeywell or the Teledyne one because that's just who they buy recorders from. I can't even fathom what would be the cost to enter this market. The engineering and testing and certification costs must be immense. Even if you do this, I don't think you'd be able to charge a premium for a better product. Imagine yourself as the Boeing 797 project manager: you're hundreds of millions over budget, the shareholders are getting upset, etc. Now your data recorder engineer comes up to you and says "here's a list of data recorders that meet federal and international standards, sorted by price." Which end of the list do you start from?