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iPods to be Used as Flight Data Recorders
udamahan writes "Flight Global reports small aircraft manufacturer LoPresti is introducing a system that uses an iPod as a flight data recorder. The company states that they chose the iPod for its size, low power requirements, and the 'thousands of developers passionate about writing applications for the iPod.' The article notes that data recorders are typically used for maintenance, flight/safety analysis, or, assuming proper protection, crash investigation."
Hmmm, not so sure if I like the sounds of this. I broke an iPod by dropping it about 4 feet, I can only imagine how one will fare after plummeting 30,000...
I would assume that they would be using flash-based iPods rather than HDD models, as I doubt a 1.8" drive could withstand an airplane crash.
"Black Boxes" are made to survive all kinds of unbelievable crashes, impacts, fires, explosions, etc.. Instead, these brainiacs are going to use something that breaks if it drops out of your pocket. Way to go, guys.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
A commercial airliner has crashed killing all 182 passengers on board as well as 8 flight crew. Investigators have recovered 191 flight recorders.
I hate printers.
They'll probably secure it properly to avoid something like that. Its size will make that easily possible. Remember inertia? It can't just fly out of where it's held. If the plane crashes, it'll be still where it was attached - just under a bit of rubble.
They really should use those Corsair Flash Voyager Disks, those things take heaps of abuse from me and still work (eg, thrown at co-workers), and 16GB aint something to schoff at either
The name of the product...
Airpod.
I don't think they mean to replace the "blackbox" as most people understand it. It is accurately described in TFA as a Personal Flight Recorder. As a (recreational) pilot I can imagine a number of situations where it would be useful to be able to record basic flight data such as altitidue, speed, ground track etc. to look at after a flight.
This brings a whole new meaning to a "disk crash."
Flight International is doing a similar thing, but with the Zune, it crashes before the plane does!
..as they are virtually indestructable.
:(
Mine has been dropped, smashed, been through both washing machine and dryer. All with no noticable damage and no dataloss.
My HDD recorder, on the other hand, was destroyed by a small amount of coca cola
They're going to be really disappointed when they find out what happens when you leave an iPod drive spinning all day.
Vonal Declosion
Will this be only available in Bono Red?
http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
After an accident there will be many people who need to investigate the flight data. How problematic is it going to be that they will only be able to put the data on five computers?
So, will they have to be turned off during the takeoff and landing phases of the flight per FAA AC 91.21. Seems like these are the most useful phases of the flight to record.
I can just image it: "At this time the cabin crew would like to remind the flight crew to turn off the flight recorder. We'll let you know when we reach cruising altitide and it is safe to turn the device back on".
Before anyone feels the need to inform me that Advisory Circulars are not the same as FAA regulations, I know already!
A One that isn't cold, is scarcely a One at all.
Sounds like an awesome idea. Chances are it's going to be used more to record normal flight data than for crash investigation. They're not aiming it at airliners. Most small single-engine piston airplanes are simple enough that the reason for the crash can be easily discerned from the wreckage. There aren't 300 redundant systems to go through. It's usually a case of "Hey, look, that piston is poking out through the engine block." or "Hmm, the 100 hour private pilot ran off the runway into a ditch trying to land in a 30kt crosswind". What it'll really be useful for is stuff like engine monitoring and whatnot. One of these reviewed by your mechanic at annual could make his job a LOT easier...
I'm sure there's alot of cheap unsold Zunes lying around in BestBuy.
can you hook this thing into the avionics?
Harrison Ford had it right, the Ipod can be used for data storage. Hollywood hacker movies are right again. One of these days someones going to hack the Gibson.....as soon as they build the Gibson.
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
.. now you can wire the iPod to your pants aswell as your Nikes.
http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
Four FAA-investigators, putting on an earnest face, leaning over an orange Ipod Shuffle
connected to highly professional audio Monitors:
(Ipod-Voice from Loudspeaker) "Hello, dear audience..."
(Ipod-Voice from Loudspeaker) "...this time I will replay the in-flight data for...."
intense shuffling, investigators are putting in a frown
(Ipod-Voice from Loudspeaker) "...cabin air moisture!"
(FAA agent 1) "No, not again!"
(FAA agent 2) "Who`s going for lunch? I`m sooo bored!"
Gumstix is a popular flight data recorder for models because it contains the highest computing power in the smallest space, but it's expensive. So could the cheapest $80 iPod be used as a Gumstix replacement? Can a $50 non-iPod mp3 player be used as an embedded computer or does it have to be iPod?
Without fail, my iPod used to die on me every time I flew. 20 minutes into the flight and BAM the drive goes into wacky mode. The unit locks, heats up, makes a sickening grinding noise as the battery quickly drains.
I finally fixed it by ripping the thing apart and re-seating the drive cable. But still...
Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
As much as I love my current iPod, I'm well aware that I have had several hard drives fail on me, and I have seen countless "geniuses" hold the tiny bricks up to their ear waiting for a telltale "click...click...click." I hope these guys are using flash-based Nanos, because a number of their bigger siblings die from hanging out in a moving pants pocket. I'm not saying those tiny little hard drives a cursed, I'm simply saying that a 30gig iPod wouldn't be my first choice for something that was supposed to survive a plane crash without needing data recovery service.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
"Despite recovering the flight data recorder from the wreckage, the caush of the crash is yet to be established. It has been confirmed however that the pilot was a big Pink Floyd fan"
This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard - wanting to use a hard disk-based iPod as an FDR?!? The stupid things are unreliable enough as consumer devices! I'm regularly having to "tap" mine on the desk to get the hard disk going again after it's paused itself in the middle of a song - how's it going to fare in a high-vibration aircraft environment, with regular pressure and temperature changes to boot!?
There are alot of people saying that this is stupid because their iPod
breaks when it falls out of thier pocket. I would say RTFA but, if you can't
bother to read the whole posting on
kind of intelligent posting.
Go on, -1 troll me. See if I give a fsck, I still call BS when I see it.
Money is the root of all evil?
They only use an ipod cause they were looking for an excuse to get one and make their company pay it...
It's so obvious
In Soviet Russia, iPod crashes YOU.
Even if they use flash-based iPod as opposed to hard drive-based one, it's still a very bad choice. You can have two flash cards with any interface recording flight data in parallel (pretending to be RAID1), in a continuous stream treating both cards as ring buffers, so each bit is overwritten once per cycle. Even with $15-20 modern flash cards you can get 1G before old data will be overwritten, and 100T (assuming that the cards are never changed) before 1/2 probability of an error. If we assume that black box records voice at 8Kbps and another 8Kbps records the flight data, that's more than 135 hours. If the voice is recorded at 64Kbps, you get 30 hours from a pair of cards. That's at most $40 of storage -- it can be expanded if necessary by adding more cards.
What is the point of adding some expensive, unreliable device that contains completely useless audio playback and input circuitry?
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
The Monolith mp3 player. Described as 'bomb-proof'. It can also be run over by a car.
The flight data recorder would presumably have to be turned off during take-off and landing, and whenever the seat-belt signs are illuminated. Isn't that precisely when one most needs flight data recording?
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
But how can you take it out of the iPod without breaking the law first?
This is my sig. There are thousands more, but this one is mine.
Eh, captain, I'm seeing passports flying again, are you ABSOLUTELY sure we're not about to crash into a tower?
I had an iPod. It costed 400 euro's and it lasted about 1 year, and it is probably the first and last Apple thing I ever bought (apart from that AppleII that is sitting in the storage room).
With great power comes great electricity bills.
Can this information be used for aircraft maintenance? It seems using a non-certified device to record data that will be used to perform service would open a repair center to a lawsuit. How can you be assured that the data is correct? It seems the only application would be to record your flight profile for playback in flightsim.
I live at approx 7000' in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, and very frequently spend time over 10,000'. I've noticed that nearly everbody in our town has a cranky or dead ipod. When a strong Sierra storm rolls through, the lowered air pressure gives us an effective altitude of nearly 9000'. I've noticed a strong coorelation between blizzards here and dead drives an iPods. I spoke with a friend in Leadville, CO (12,500') and he claims they flat don't work at his altitude. Also many reports can be found via google of people's iPods not loving the tops of ski areas (Breckenridge goes to like 13,800'). I know most planes are pressurized... but... Would be nice if stock drives were happy at 15,000' - there's no real way to locally increase the air pressure around the drive, and the thinner air brings the head closer to the platters.
So quit your job, pack your bags, and move on out to snow country!
Protective Flight Recorder Cases for iPods: 1/4" titanium shell, 1" dry-silica temperature insulation, 2" shock absorbing foam padding. Add door, fire-retardant sealings and a data connector from ext to int. Optional: Locator beacon. Anyone wants to place an order?
If they are going to use the HD versions, then they might as well not bother.
I dont care what protective case you put it in, a 20000 feet drop is going to kill a mechincal hardddrive.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Ok, now a days, every car seems wired for iPod... Why not add that to the car features, a car crash data recorder (ok, shhh... We have it built in already... I know... I know...)
AND WHAT ABOUT MY FLYING CAR!!! I WANT MY FLYING CAR!!! With the iPod option!
--- Relax, that mass muderer is just trying to reduce our carbon footprint, one fetus at a time...
...is that the internal workings of the Flight Data Recorder are going to be ran by the iPod, IE, the iPod will be in a protected (black) box to survive the crash. However, I think they are still taking a pretty big risk with a hard drive based iPod, but I have no idea what they use now, it very well could be a hard drive based system. Otherwise, they can just use one of those flash based systems that can survive 2000g impacts.
Kyle
iPod Accessories just keep getting more and more inventive. And I thought the iPod sock was inventive, but now a plane?
Why not just have a live feed of the blackbox data streamed directly to the FAA?
"Ground control to Major Tom... your circuit's dead... there's something wrong! Can you hear me Major Tom? Can you hear me Major Tom?"
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
But think about all the great Black Box recordings that will be available on iTunes for everyone to listen to. I see the RIAA getting their mits in on this.
Can I bum a sig?
Won't the iPod disrupt the plane's flight electronics and CAUSE crashes, though? That's why the flight attendants always remind us that the use of portable electronic devices during takeoff and landing is forbidden, right?
These are light weight aircraft that most likely don't have requirements for the fancy black boxes that commercial airliners are required to have. Not to mention, it's not even intended to serve the same purpose! Think of it like an Apple iPod Nike+ for airplanes. You record your flight, like you record your run. Once back home, you can look at the records and enjoy. If it's actually available for accident analysis, that's just a lucky coincidence. (I doubt they even plan on recording the types of data required for blackbox forensics in the first place.)
... someone made a material that could withstand high heat without melting that you make a box from, and another material that could be wrapped around an object to insulate it from heat that you could then place inside the box! Then, you could paint the box black! how cool would that be!
- Disclaimer: Information in this post deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
I did a bunch of development back in 2002 to use an Archos Recorder for automotive data acquisition. It seemed like a fairly obvious application of a low cost platform and worked very well. And so no need to keep dragging the vaio out for harsh testing.
By Justin Wastnage
Apple Computer's popular iPod music player could become a flight data recorder (FDR) following an announcement by US light aircraft manufacturer LoPresti SpeedMerchants to introduce the device in the cockpit of its Fury piston aircraft.
The company says it plans the "full integration of the iPod into the Fury's avionics systems". The iconic 'white box' iPod will serve as a digital data recorder, nicknamed 'black boxes' by the general media. The iPod, with suitable software, acts as a hard disk with the ability to record over 500h of flight time data.
It was not immediately clear from the company's statement which parameters would be recorded and for what purpose. Recorders are currently used to collect data for maintenance purposes through system monitoring, for post-flight analysis in training and safety-monitoring, and, when suitably protected, for crash investigation.
Vero Beach, Florida-based LoPresti. "The iPod becomes the first truly portable, personal flight recorder with a huge recording capacity."
"This is a watershed technology for aviation," says LoPresti vice president of operations, RJ Siegel, "and we are delighted to be the first to bring it to market." The Fury (pictured below) will prove the concept, but once certificated, the iPod FDR could be deployed on other light aircraft.
The iPod can also act as an audio recorder, and can be used to capture two-way cockpit conversation and communication with air traffic control.
The iPod FDR would work with the patented iPod Dock Connector port on the bottom of the iPod, for which there is a large software developer community. "This is the perfect marriage of a consumer product to the aviation market" says Siegel. "The iPod has an ideal product spec for aviation. It's light and small, with very low power requirements and a simple interface. There are thousands of developers passionate about writing applications for the iPod. With such a large body of programmers we literally have no idea what the next great aviation application may be."
I can say from personal experience that Nanos are in many ways indestructible. Even if their LCD breaks the device will still play music and can take serious abuse. I read a website once where they tried throwing it up into the air as high as they could and having it bounce on cement; running over it with a car; stomping on it; etc; and the Nano still played.
It illustrates what my philosophy has been since the iPod was introduced: a hard drive in your pocket sounds like a dumb idea to me. Eventually all iPods will be flash based for that reason.
I work at a distributor where we sell both (otterboxes are the low end line of Underwater Kinetics). Pelican and UK cases are better for this application because they're vented. Otter Boxes have a higher crush pressure, but may burst if there's sudden decompression.
I wouldn't recommend either company's iPod cases for this application either. Go with something like a Pelican 1200 or UK 5010 so that there's LOTS of foam padding. We're not talking about 15 minutes of jogging followed by a drop from 1 meter, we're talking about hundreds of hours of vibration.
We have customers that buy UK or Pelican cases, then drill through them to mount ruggedized connectors like Cannon or Amphenols, RF connectors (RFI or Amphenol), or Eaton harsh environment switches to use for controls. Both lines stand up well to field abuse.
I can see the news report now:
"NTSB crash investigators have been baffled as to the cause of the private plane crash that killed Steve Jobs and four others last week, but today they made a major breakthrough in their investigation. The crash investigators were initially stymied by the sequence of events leading up to the crash. Apparently, the initial confusion was resolved once they discovered the Crash.Events playback was set to shuffle."
"In a related story, Conspiracy therorists are not buying the explanation. They say that they have proof that the flight data recorder shows the plane was in level flight after having slammed into the Mountain. They insist that this was a plot financed by former Microsoft President Bill Gates to 'send a message' that Microsoft is not to be trifled with."
"Mr Gates was unavailable for comment as he was attending a conference on Aids in Africa."
"To counter these claims, the NTSB has offered to share crash evidence with the general public, just as soon as they can figure out how to bypass the DRM features without running afoul of the DMCA."
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
Sounds more like a stupid idea. There is such a thing as using the right tool for the job. There is nothing to see here but some 'gee whiz i did it because i could' geek factor.
Better get the laser etched iPod saying 'THIS IS THE FLIGHT RECORDER', otherwise they will be going thru a lot of music.
Within 20 minutes of the plane going down, a dozen RIAA representatives, dressed in police-style raid jackets, were on site to offer their "assistance" to the FAA in locating the black box.
"Since black boxes are, by definition, black, and current iPod Nanos only come in black on the 8GB model, we knew we would have a lot of data to comb through." remarked the lead RIAA investigator, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We located the device, and analyzed it. Among the contents, we found Dave Matthew's 'Crash Into Me', Tom Petty's 'Free Falling', and Bruce Springsteen's 'I'm on Fire', and will basically be suing the airline for enough money that compensating relatives of the deceased and buying a new 747 just dropped to number two and three on their expenses from this incident. Another file on the black box, a recording of the pilot screaming "Oh my God we're going to DIE!', appears to not be the intellectual property of our organization, so we aren't suing over that one though we do frown on listening to non-RIAA-sanctioned recordings. Once our lawsuit over the pirated MP3's is concluded, we'll hand the unit over to the FAA for them to do their thing, but given the severity of the case, obviously our own examination of the black box comes first."
Wow, those planes must be made out of wood, because now everyone will be able to get r00t on them!
http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album /0,,341907,00.html
Will Apple insist on it have their DRM licensing and only allow the data to be accessed by iBlackBox software?
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
Really, that's looking a gift horse in the mouth. There is no regulatory requirement for flight data recorders on small aircraft. For the most part, the NTSB guys do a great job of analyzing needle positions, light filaments, structural deformation, etc. to determine the causes of crashes and get a good idea of the parameters the airplane was operating under when it went in.
However, the new generation of small planes now includes glass cockpits and carbon-fibre materials. They make accident investigation much harder. I had the opportunity to speak with Greg Feith about this at length. Greg was the investigator in charge for the Valu-Jet crash, and worked on TWA800, and a number of other high profile accidents. He said it makes it much more difficult to investigate these airplanes when there are fewer instruments to analyze and a "plastic airframe" as he called it.
I'm glad to see it come out, and I will be interested to see the future development of this and the others that are sure to follow. I'd prefer that somebody was able to tell what happened if I ever died in an accident. The cockpit voice recorder function will also be a boon. All radio transmissions to and from ATC are recorded now; but you don't get to hear what's being said in the airplane. That is good information and could be a great educational tool for the rest of the flying community.
Whether or not the i-pod is functional after the crash, as long as data can be extracted from the flash drive, we're golden.
There are potentially huge safety benefits to this.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
I was on a program that built flash based flight recorders. Far from trivial. The problem is even if you use flash, the wirebonding on the chips rip off at high impact. Doing things right involves minimizing the mass of the survivable component and then putting it in a lot of squishy insulating nonflammable material, and then putting that in a titanium box, and then putting that in more squishy insulating nonflammable material. If you think an iPod could handle that put it in a standard paper envelope and post it to yourself. If it survives that, we'll get to the hard part.
I prefer "iDead"
"WiiDead"
*ba-dum-dum*
R(k)
I'm not, but circumstance has a funny way of stepping in and using my perceptions against one another.
I had bought a Compaq years ago. It was the worst machine I've ever had. I'm talking about a semi-functional, proprietary, non-upgradable nightmare of Packard-Bell proportions.
After taking more pain from this machine than I cared for, I shopped around and settled on an HP as its replacement. One of the best machines I've ever owned. And I swore I would never again send one of my dollars to Compaq.
Then HP bought Compaq, and I all but wept. Damn you, Murphy.
"Hey, the third matrix movie would have been good except for the plot,story, and acting." --AC
Use this junk ass piece of techno jewelry with built-in obsolescence as a flight data recorder? There really is "one born every minute" [PT Barnum].
Why dont they send the black box info wirelessly to a remote server. This way there is no need to search for a black box in the event of an accident.
Select your favorite 'Last Message tune' from our huge collection.
...
:)
Eg:
top 10 List:
FLight GFD emergency landing
Flight XyA hits the mountain.
Flight BVQ explodes mid-air
(this one was too good a lead to let it slip
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/nano.ars/3
To be fair, the screen (which had previously been damaged) was destroyed in the process.
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
Where??? I thought the iPod was a totally closed system and apple pretty much has told third party developers to go shove it... perhaps not????
Where does one get info on developing for the iPod?
Thanks in advance!
Mike
That's quite appropriate, since the original invention of the black box was prompted by the "iPod" of the 1950s, a music recording/playing device called a "miniphon", which recorded on metal wire (not magnetic tape). An Australian chemist named David Warren was at a meeting investigating the Comet jet airliner crashes. He was sitting there half listening to other experts give their various theories for what had caused the crash, and half thinking about a jazz concert he was going to record that night, and someone suggested a hijacking. And he thought "pity no-one had one of these recorders there in the cockpit, or we'd know". That's what sparked off the idea which eventually resulted in the development of the black box. The first prototype model made was actually two of these miniphon recorders arranged so that as one finished its metal reel it would start recording on the second in an infinite loop. The wikipedia entry for the black box has some of the links.