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Why Are We Spending Billions and Tons of Fossil Fuel On Search of Lost Planes?
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.
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.
I don't think the question is bad. The solution is stupid. To me why does it have to be stored on the plane itself? Why can't it be transmitted in flight? Or giant mesh network between planes to swap data?
How about keeping the system as is, but provide a secondary "black box" which contains a duplicate record. Any flight staff would be able to hit a button (placed in several different areas throughout the plane) to eject the secondary black box in the event that they knew they were in trouble.
The secondary black box would have a GPS tracking system, floatation, etc etc
If they accidentally eject it... oh well, not THAT big of a deal and we still have the primary system.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
Iridium has 66 sats in low polar orbits, giving them 100% coverage of the Earth's surface, Inmarsat used geostationary orbits and has coverage of most of the Earth within ~80 degrees of the equator. In the MH370 case, the last communications received were from the Inmarsat terminal on the plane. The problem is that the signals didn't have location data, and the services that would provide locations were disabled.
As most countries migrate to ADS-B, there will be more planes regularly transmitting their current location. There is also an ongoing effort to add ADS-B reception to the Iridium network so they don't have to rely on ground stations.
The only real changes that are needed now is to make sure transponders can't be turned off in flight.
How about non-stop streaming the info?
Or you could just report back your geographic coordinates via satellite communications every five minutes or so. This could be done by a low power battery backed up transmitter that would continue to run (at very low wattage) even when the fuse is pulled. Breitling makes a watch that transmits your GPS position via satellite, so we're not talking about doing something that requires massive li-ion batteries here. It could run off a very safe, current-limited NiMH battery pack that is vanishingly unlikely to cause a fire. The key is that nobody on board can stop the aircraft's position from being reported.
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You know, the questions was stupid, yes. The entire time I read it I was very "Wha?" about it but it did spawn some good and informative postings. That's more than I can say about all the political and entertainment slop that gets posted here. Even many of the computing and science related posts are lacking in truly informative postings anymore. It was a nice change of pace.