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Why Are We Spending Billions and Tons of Fossil Fuel On Search of Lost Planes?

Posted by msmash on from the reader-asks dept.

Reader Max_W asks: After days of massive search finally, "Report: Signals detected from EgyptAir Flight 804 in Mediterranean"

Why not record GPS/GLONASS track constantly into a text file on say twenty flash USB drives enclosed into orange styrofoam with the serial aircraft number on it? In case of an accident, these waterproof USB flash drives are released outside overboard. Certainly the text file is encrypted.

Such a floating USB flash drive would cost maximum a hundred USD even if equipped with a tiny LED lamp; while an aircraft costs millions, and a search may costs billions let alone thousands of tons of burned fossil fuel.

8 of 343 comments (clear)

  1. Sure. by DougOtto · · Score: 4, Informative

    Then we can spend all that fuel looking for a piece of floating garbage. How in the hell did this get green-lighted?

    --
    Solving Unix problems since 1989...
    1. Re:Sure. by MightyMartian · · Score: 1, Informative

      No fucking kidding. As it is they knew where the Egypt Air plane went down within a reasonably tight geographical area, since it was on radar until it plummeted and disappeared.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  2. It's called a black box by HumanWiki · · Score: 4, Informative

    "Why not record GPS/GLONASS track constantly into a text file on say twenty flash USB drives enclosed into orange styrofoam with the serial aircraft number on it? In case of an accident, these waterproof USB flash drives are released outside overboard. Certainly the text file is encrypted.

    Such a floating USB flash drive would cost maximum a hundred USD even if equipped with a tiny LED lamp; while an aircraft costs millions, and a search may costs billions let alone thousands of tons of burned fossil fuel."

    Congrats, you just reinvented a black box and they don't always surface or float based on impact, depth of water, if it's caught in something or the blame hit with such violence that there wasn't much left.

    1. Re:It's called a black box by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Informative

      USB drives wouldn't survive anyway. Heat from a fire would kill them. Sudden deceleration would rip the components off the circuit board. Electrical faults would fry them. The USB connector itself is not waterproof anyway. Splash proof perhaps, but not "submersible to 5000m for months at a time". The connectors they use on black boxes are military grade for this reason, and rather expensive.

      Styrofoam will disintegrate instantly on impact, and melt in heat.

      Black boxes are already as optimized as they can be for cost and recoverability.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  3. Never misplaced a 747 around the house. Floating.. by raymorris · · Score: 5, Informative

    I've never had trouble finding a 747 that I left laying around the house. USB drives, on the other hand -- I lose those son of a bitches all the damn time.

    The submitter seems to think that a 2 inch USB drive will be easier to find than a 200 foot airplane.

    On the other hand, the suggestion of a FLOATING auxiliary black box has been made seriously and isn't ridiculous. A challenge is that the device must reliably leave the airplane in case of a crash, but not be knocked loss by flying at 680MPH, or be dislodged by a rough landing at an airport.

  4. Re:Numerous bits of ignorance. by slew · · Score: 5, Informative

    A far simpler solution is to simply have all planes continuously broadcast their GPS location whenever they go below a certain altitude or descend too quickly. Have them broadcast using a satellite phone system that covers the ENTIRE world - including the oceans, of course. Yes this would require some new satellites - but it is a global problem that the UN could easily solve with money.

    What is the reason existing Iridium satellites, or geostationary communication satellites can't be used to provide a near continuous transmission of at least basic data (position, speed, etc.) at a modest update rate? I'd guess even if few kbs rate would be plenty.

    Commercial aircraft *already* do broadcast pretty much continuously using ACARS...

    The problem is twofold
    1. Planes fly very high and go fast and they have wings which generate aerodynamic lift which result in a huge search area when something goes wrong and they stop sending these pings...
    2. The ACARS system is very old and currently doesn't transmit GPS information and the location determined by a combination of radar and triangulation. The newer ADS-B system will remedy this as it adds tracking information, but is currently only being deployed now and does not exist in older aircraft.

    In fact ADS-B is *already* planned to link with iridium satellites (with newer satellites to be launched in the next few years), but up-linking with geosync satelllite isn't very practical (because they are very far away, and they don't launch new ones very often)...

    But of course /.-readers have the whole world figured out already, so maybe we can lobby scrap the ADS-B system and equip all new aircraft with USB sticks instead...

  5. Re:Numerous bits of ignorance. by Strider- · · Score: 5, Informative

    Both Iridium and Orbcomm are truly global systems. Iridium satellites are in 86.9 degree orbits, and with 66 of them in active service, they provide pole to pole coverage. In fact, some of the early phones had a firmware bug that would cause them to get all confused in polar regions because they had so many satellites to choose from, and Iridium only allows hand-off between satellites going in the same general direction. Not a problem in most of the world, but at the poles, yes.

    The only place where there may be issues with Iridium is over China, but that's due to licensing and legal restrictions placed by the government there, not due to any technical reason.

    What you're probably thinking about is Globalstar, which is not global in reach. With Globalstar, your handset/earth station must be within single-hop distance to one of their earth-based gateways (Ie the satellite must be able to see you and a gateway at the same time). This means there is a large coverage gap in the mid pacific ocean.

    Because Iridium uses inter-satellite links, all civilian traffic downlinks through their gateway in Tempe Arizona, and DoD downlinks through an earth station in Hawaii. If you make an Iridium to Iridium call, there is a good chance that it will get routed directly through the satellite constellation and never go through Tempe (or Hawaii).

    --
    ...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
  6. Think they haven't been trying to solve this? by tipo159 · · Score: 3, Informative

    After AF447 and then again after MH370, the people who deal with stuff for a living have been discussing this. Well, not this kinda lame proposal, but the problem that it is trying to solve.

    Here is a GAO report on the topic.

    As far as the "fossil fuel" wasted on the search, a) as noted elsewhere, you want to search for survivors (JAL123, a 747, crashed into the side of a mountain and there were 4 survivors) and b) even if you know exactly where the plane went down, the fuel used to search is small compared to the fuel spent on recovery.