Airplane black box. Airplane black box: why is it needed and what color is it really? 

Here's a riddle for you: He orange color, and they call him “black”. When they see it, they say that it is a “box”, but in fact its shape is round. What is this? “A black box...” - one of the readers makes an uncertain conclusion. And he’s right! Where do all these paradoxes with color and shape come from? We need to figure it out...

Airplane black box

In narrower circles, the black box is called the “flight recorder.” That's right, the name is closely related to the aviation industry. Absolutely all aircraft have this recorder on board. The function of the black box is to record all kinds of data during flight. First of all, this is flight data that is read from instruments. Pilots' conversations are also recorded. The black box in a modern aircraft is capable of recording about 500 different parameters. If a disaster occurs, then thanks to all this data, it is possible to restore the flight picture and identify the reasons for the malfunction of the vessel.

What does an airplane's black box look like?

Indeed, the “black box” is painted bright orange. This to some extent makes it easier to find him among the wreckage of the plane. Inside the box there is electronic filling, as well as a memory module - which is the main element (it stores all the information).

About 10 years ago, the memory module was bulky. The reason for this is the peculiarities of data recording. At that time, recording was made on punched tapes, magnetic film, and even on special magnetic wire. Optimal shape The body for such records was a cylinder.
Nowadays, the recording principle is identical to the operating principle of the most ordinary flash drive. The cylindrical shape was replaced by a parallelepiped. Imagine a flash drive stored not in a trouser pocket, but in an armored box, and everything will become clear.

Well, since it’s a flash drive, of course, it can be connected to a computer. Let's see what's written there. And one out of a thousand flights is recorded on it (you did realize that absolutely all flights are recorded?). Well, so, on the computer screen in special program Various graphs are displayed. The top one is the altitude, just below is a graph of engine operating parameters, even lower is a recording of the pilots’ conversation, and much more.

Since the box we are looking at was not in a plane crash, the computer could read all the information without much difficulty. But what happens if you give this box a good shake?
No, we won’t crash the plane for the sake of an experiment, but we’ll do a strength test.

Valery will help us in this experiment. He is a master of sports in classic rallying from the USSR era. We will attach the box with a cable to Valery's car, and he will try to accelerate well and perform a maneuver in which the box will hit the metal bucket of the snowblower with all his might. Go!

Airplane black box photo

The car accelerates to 100 km/h and “flies” straight towards the snowplow. A confident turn of the steering wheel to the right and then to the left, and our box hits a metal barrier and flies away from it a couple of meters. The impact was so strong that a dent was left on the metal bucket! Visually, the box was not damaged, if you do not take into account abrasions. Now let's try connecting the recorder to the computer again. And what do we see? No changes, everything works as before! All data was preserved, even after such a tough test.

The experiment continues. This time we will go to the roof of a house, which is about 100 meters high, and drop the box down. A short flight, and then the box slightly bounces off the hard asphalt. Surprisingly strong device! After the collision, a hole was left on the asphalt, and the cable for connecting to the computer was only slightly bent on the recorder. Now it will be more difficult to read the data. This box can no longer be connected to a simple computer, and it is sent to specialists. For masters of their craft, a damaged train is a typical situation. An automated machine removes memory cards from the recorder, which are manually inserted into the reader.

Now imagine what happens to a black box during a disaster. One of the colossal destructive forces is fire and heat. And then the box changes its orange color to black. According to international standards, the flight recorder must withstand open flames and temperatures of 1000 degrees for at least an hour. How can such fire resistance be achieved? The whole secret is in the powder, which fills the entire space of the recorder.

For clarity, let's conduct another experiment. Let's take the ordinary egg, put it in a container, and fill the entire space with the same powder that is in the black box. Now we put the container in the oven over an open fire. The temperature is 1100 degrees (by the way, this is the combustion temperature of aviation kerosene). After 20 minutes we take out our container. And what do you think happened to the egg? Nothing! It remained raw.

The main principle of a black box is “Save the recorded data at any cost!” If a disaster occurs, specialists will use this data to reconstruct every moment of the flight. Thus, it will be clear what caused the malfunction of the aircraft, and they will also find out whether the crew acted correctly in this situation. In any case, conclusions will be drawn that will help avoid similar disasters in the future and save thousands of lives.

An aircraft black box (flight recorder, recorder) is a device that is used in railways, water transport and aviation to record information from on-board systems, crew conversations, etc. If any incident occurs in transport, this data is used to determine the causes.

Story

The first operational flight information recorder appeared in 1939. The French Bodun and Usseno designed a light-ray oscilloscope that recorded every flight parameter (speed, altitude, etc.). This happened by deflecting the corresponding mirror, which reflected a beam of light onto the photographic film. According to one version, this is how the name “airplane black box” appeared (see photo below), because its body was painted this color in order to protect the film from exposure. In 1947, enterprising inventors organized the French Society of Measuring Instruments. Over time, this company became a fairly large equipment manufacturer and merged with the Safran concern.

New modification

In 1953, Australian scientist David Warren, who took part in the investigation of the Havilland disaster, put forward the idea that having recordings of crew conversations would be very helpful in such a case. The mechanism he proposed combined voice and parametric recorders, and also used magnetic tape for recording. Warren's recorder was wrapped in asbestos and contained in a steel case. This is probably why we have another definition of the concept of an “aircraft black box” - this is an object with an unknown or unprincipled internal structure that performs certain functions.

David presented a prototype of the device in 1956. He also invented the black box on the plane. Four years later, the Australian government ordered the installation of recorders on all existing aircraft. Soon other countries also followed suit.

What is inside?

The black box of the aircraft, a photo of which you can see in the article, does not belong to the category of complex devices. This is a regular array of controller and flash memory chips. It is not much different from a standard laptop SSD drive. However, flash memory is used in recorders relatively recently. Nowadays, most aircraft are equipped with older models where recording is done on magnetic tape or wire.

Types of recorders

There are two types of recorders: operational and emergency. The first of them is not secure and is used for everyday monitoring vehicle. Personnel of railway, water and air transport reads information from the system’s storage devices after each flight. Then the received data is analyzed for the presence of unacceptable actions by the crew during work. For example:

• whether the maximum pitch or roll permitted by the manufacturer was exceeded;
• whether the overload was exceeded during takeoff/landing;
• whether the operating time in takeoff or afterburner modes was exceeded, etc.

This information also allows you to monitor resource depletion and carry out timely routine maintenance to reduce the failure rate of transport equipment and improve flight safety.

The emergency recorder is very different reliable protection. In accordance with the requirements of the modern TSO-C124 standard, it ensures data safety for half an hour of continuous burning, with shock overloads of 3400 g, staying at a depth of 6 km for 30 days, as well as static overloads of 2 tons lasting up to 5 minutes. For comparison: previous generation recorders with magnetic tapes could withstand a shock overload of only 1000 g and a burning time of up to 15 minutes. To facilitate searches, emergency recorders are equipped with hydroacoustic pingers and radio beacons.

What is it made of?

We will discuss the color of the black box on the plane below, but for now let's talk about the materials from which it is made. Recorders are made from alloyed iron or titanium alloys. In any case, it is a heat-resistant and high-strength material. Although, for the most part, the safety of recorders is ensured by their location in the aircraft body.

What airplane box?

Typically the flight recorder is red or orange. Now you know what color the black box of the plane is, and it is quite clear that its name has nothing to do with the actual color. Bright coloring was done to make it easier to find.

What parameters are recorded?

Recorders are constantly being improved. The first black boxes read only 5 parameters: speed, time, vertical acceleration, altitude and heading. They were fixed with a stylus onto disposable metal foil. The last phase of the evolution of recorders dates back to the 90s, when solid-state media came into use. Modern recorders are capable of recording up to 256 parameters. Here are some of them:

• Remaining fuel.
• Instant fuel consumption.
• Pitch speed.
• Air pressure.
• Roll angle.
• Mains voltage.
• Position of the motor control handle.
• Lateral overload.
• Deviation of aileron-introceptors.
• Flap deflection.
• Steering wheel deflection.
• Stabilizer deflection.
• Aileron deflection.
• Travel of the control yoke in pitch, heading and roll.
• Steering wheel stroke.
• Engine speed.
• Engine speed.
• Vertical and lateral overloads.
• True height.
• Barometric altitude.
• Flight speed, etc.

Where is?

The aircraft's black box is located at the rear of the aircraft. There are several recorders on board. Backup models are needed in case of severe damage or inability to detect the main ones.

Previously, speech and parametric recorders were separated: the first was installed in the cockpit, and the second in the tail of the aircraft. However, due to the fact that the cabin was destroyed in the disaster more than the tail section, both recorders were mounted in the tail of the aircraft.

Airplane black box: decryption

This is as much a myth as the color of the recorder in its name. Remember: deciphering the black boxes of crashed planes is simply impossible. You will ask why? Yes, because the recorded data is not encrypted, and the word “decryption” itself is used in the same context as that used by journalists processing interview recordings. They write the text while listening to the tape recorder. A commission of experts does the same, recording data in a form convenient for perception and analysis. There is no encryption here: there is no protection of data from outsiders, the information is available for reading at any airport. There is also no protection of data from modification, because the recorder is designed to identify the causes of aircraft accidents and reduce their number in the future. In the end, to suppress or distort the true causes of accidents for political or other reasons, one can make a statement about serious damage to the recorders and the inability to read information.

True, even with severe damage (approximately 30% of disasters), the black box of a crashed plane can still be reconstructed. The tape fragments are glued together and treated with a special mixture, and the surviving microcircuits are soldered and connected to the reader. These are quite complex procedures, carried out in special laboratories and time-consuming.

Are there alternatives?

Now you know what an airplane black box is. Until now, this device is not considered 100% reliable. Are there any alternatives?

At the moment they simply do not exist, but engineers are constantly working to improve existing models. In the near future, they plan to transmit data from the black boxes in real time either to air bases or to a satellite.

Boeing 777 captain Steve Abdu believes sending real-time data would require expensive satellite communications. But if you send at 4-5 minute intervals, this will significantly reduce the cost of the technology and increase the profitability of its use. Since the number of satellites on the planet increases every year, storing flight data on a remote device is the most likely alternative to long searches and labor-intensive data decryption.

There are also plans to install shootable floating recorders. The collision of the aircraft with an obstacle will be recorded by special sensors, which will subsequently trigger the ejection of the recorder with a parachute. A similar principle is already used in automobile

Flight recorders are devices designed to record flight characteristics and cockpit communications. The device is an electronic unit that records on digital media. The system is reliably protected by a sealed metal case. Flight recorders are able to remain for a sufficient period of time in the most unfavorable conditions.

Story

The first registrar was created in France. In 1939, F. Housseno and P. Baudouin developed an oscilloscope that recorded every deviation in a flight parameter using rays of light. 14 years later, the representative of Australian science D. Warren, participating in the investigation of the crash of a passenger plane, came up with the idea of ​​​​the need to record the pilots' conversations.

The idea became a real invention 3 years later, in 1956. The flight recorder was protected by asbestos and a steel casing. In 1960, Australia introduced a requirement that made the installation of a recorder in aircraft mandatory. Other countries followed the example of the Green Continent.

Common Myths

The media broadcasts every aircraft crash in every available detail. Perhaps everyone has heard about the fact that in fact it is not structured exactly as the average person is used to imagining. The main myths created about the black box are:

1. The recorder itself is not actually black, but orange. The color was chosen based on the ease of detection of the recorder in the conditions of a plane crash.
2. And the box is not a box at all: the recorder is most often a sphere or a cylinder. The spherical shape allows you to withstand the maximum permissible loads.
3. Typically, a decipherer is not required to obtain the recorded information. The data is not actually encrypted in any way. Absolutely anyone can listen to them. However, only an expert can analyze the information received.

Now readers should have formed the correct opinion about what they look like flight recorders in fact.

Modern airliners are equipped with two flight recorders: voice and parametric. It is common practice to use an additional operational set of recorders.

Purpose

Flight recorders are intended to collect and store navigation indicators, information about the crew’s actions and the material condition of the aircraft. Modern recorders are capable of recording the following parameters:

• fuel fluid pressure when supplied to the engine;
• pressure in each of the hydraulic systems;
• engine speed;
• temperature behind the aircraft turbine space;
• using the combat button;
• deviation of control devices and its degree;
• use of take-off and landing mechanisms;
• speed, altitude, flight course;
• passing lighthouses.

Recording flight parameters and pilot conversations greatly simplifies the investigation of the causes of a plane crash. This not only allows you to understand the design flaws, but also develop an action plan in emergency situations, analyze the crash from all possible angles.

Flight recorder device

The design principle of the recorder depends on the purpose and method of recording information. There are optical, magnetic, mechanical and electronic storage devices. Mechanical and optical recording methods are outdated; currently they are not used even on older aircraft models.

Electronic recording systems are a collection of memory and controller chips, much like the SSD drive in a regular laptop. Recorders with an electronic type device are installed on all modern aircraft and make up the majority of all recorders used. Older models still use magnetic recording using tape or wire. The latter is a more reliable option.

Externally, the flight recorder is protected by a metal shell made of titanium alloys or alloyed iron. Operational and test recorders are used without additional coverage. Appearance devices will depend on what types of flight recorders are. Photos allow you to study each species separately in detail.

The safety of the recorders is also determined by where the flight recorders are located. According to statistics, the tail one suffers the least in airspace accidents. This reason explains the location of the flight recorders in the aircraft in the tail of the fuselage.

Starting the recorder

Only employees who are not interested in data distortion have access to recorder maintenance. Crew members cannot independently turn the recording on or off. For the purpose of automatic launch, a relationship is created between the operation of the recorder and the actions of the aircraft. There are several types of registrar activation:

• when starting an aircraft engine;
• on action ;
• using speed sensors.

The time it takes to record data on flight recorders depends on the method of recording information. Typically 30-120 minutes from a certain point in the flight.

Types of recorders depending on the purpose of use

The operational flight recorder is used during routine scheduled flights to obtain objective information about the condition of the aircraft being operated, as well as to independently evaluate the performance of crew members. This type of recorder is not protected from exposure environment in case of a disaster.

The emergency flight recorder is exactly the mechanism that everyone talks about when an airplane crashes. Before use, a test is carried out to show how resistant the device is to critical conditions. Flight recorders for crashed aircraft must be capable of:

• stay 24 hours;
• Burn for 60 minutes (1100 °C);
• stay on the ocean floor (6000 m) for a month;
• withstand a statistical overload on each axis of 2168 kg.

After a thorough check, the flight recorder is allowed to be installed on the aircraft.

The test recorder is used to evaluate the performance of the aircraft. Used during trial test flights to identify possible disadvantages designs. Not applicable during passenger flights.

Voice and parametric recorders

Modern ones are equipped with two types of recorders: speech and parametric. Often the design involves combining different types information into one flight recorder. Both speech and parametric devices have a clear relationship with time.

Parametric recorders are capable of recording more than 2000 data, but only about 500 of them are used. The limitation in the number of recorded parameters is due to the fact that they are not used for disaster investigation. Recorders of this type are one of the main indicators of aircraft malfunctions and objective evidence of the causes of the incident.

Voice recorders record the conversation between the crew at a certain period of time. Used to identify and eliminate human factors in aircraft accidents, as well as to improve and evaluate professional skills.

Search for recorders after an airliner crash

The recorders are equipped with special beacons based on ultrasonic waves, which are activated in case of danger (for example, upon contact with water). The signal frequency is 37.5 kHz. If the crash occurred far from water, finding the recorder is not difficult.

The bright color is clearly visible against the background of the debris. High wear resistance allows not only to detect the ball or cylinder of the recorder in relative safety, but also to decrypt the data.

Is it possible to restore the recorder if it breaks?

About a third of all aircraft accidents lead to a violation of the integrity of the flight recorder housing, which entails loss of information. In some cases, laboratories carry out serious and lengthy work to restore damaged parts of recording devices.

Methods are based on soldering or the use of adhesives. Sometimes repairs help and information can be restored.

Improving technology

The invention appeared more than 50 years ago. Have analogues appeared during this time that can replace flight recorders? No, so far this is the most reliable and informative method record the necessary characteristics of the aircraft. Under development individual mechanisms registrars' work, but general principle remains the same.

Memory devices are actively being improved and developed electronic media information. It is planned to create video recordings of individual sections of the aircraft, which will allow more careful monitoring of the situation and evaluation of the results.

Scientists are considering options for creating shootable and floating recorders. To do this, it is necessary to equip the device with sensors that will be able to detect the collision of the aircraft with an obstacle. Received distress signals will trigger an ejection mechanism from a dangerous place.

The idea of ​​broadcasting recordings online to a remote server is also interesting. This will reduce decryption time, allow you to respond faster to emergency events and have full access to information in real time.

Flight recorders are one of the most important inventions of post-war technology. The data obtained from recorders of destroyed aircraft helps to study the basic mechanisms of disasters and minimize the percentage of accidents. In cases of an attack on an airliner, the flight recorder can confirm forensic scientists' guesses about a terrorist attack or combat operation in airspace.

Airplane black boxes

The phrase “black box” is heard on television in two cases: when the program “What? Where? When?" and when a plane crash occurs somewhere. The paradox is that if in a TV show a black box is really a black box, then on an airplane it is not a box and it is not black. The flight recorder (that's what the device is actually called) is usually made red or orange, and the shape is spherical or cylindrical. The explanation is very simple: the rounded shape better withstands external influences that are inevitable when an airplane crashes, and the bright color makes searching easier. Let's understand together the structure of recorders, as well as the decoding of information.

What's in the box?

The recorder itself is, in general, a simple device: it is an array of flash memory chips and a controller and is fundamentally not much different from the SSD drive in your laptop. True, flash memory is used in recorders relatively recently, and there are now many aircraft in the air equipped with older models that use magnetic recording - on tape, as in tape recorders, or on wire, as in the very first tape recorders: wire is stronger than tape, and therefore more reliable.

The main thing is that all this stuffing should be properly protected: the completely sealed case is made of titanium or high-strength steel, inside there is a thick layer of thermal insulation and damping materials. There is a special FAA standard TSO C123b/C124b, which modern recorders comply with: data must remain safe under overloads of 3400G for 6.5 ms (fall from any height), full fire coverage for 30 minutes (fire from fuel ignition in an aircraft collision with the ground) and being at a depth of 6 km for a month (if an airplane falls into water anywhere in the World Ocean, except for depressions, the probability of falling into which is statistically small).

By the way, regarding falling into water: recorders are equipped with ultrasonic beacons that turn on upon contact with water. The lighthouse emits a signal at a frequency of 37,500 Hz, and, having found this signal, the recorder can easily be found at the bottom, from where it is retrieved by divers or remotely controlled robots for underwater work. It is also not difficult to find a recorder on the ground: having discovered the wreckage of an airplane and knowing the locations of the recorders, it is enough, in fact, just to look around.

The case must have the inscription “Flight Recorder. Don't open" on English language. There is often the same inscription in French; There may be inscriptions in other languages.

Where are the boxes located?

On an airplane, “black boxes” are located, as a rule, in the rear part of the fuselage, which is statistically smaller and least likely to be damaged in accidents, since the front part usually takes the impact. There are several recorders on board - it’s customary in aviation that all systems are backed up: the likelihood that none of them can be detected, and the data on those detected will be corrupted, is minimal.

At the same time, recorders also differ in the data recorded in them. Emergency recorders, which are sought after after disasters, are parametric (FDR) And speech (CVR).

In addition to conversations between crews and dispatchers, the voice recorder also stores ambient sounds (4 channels in total, recording duration is the last 2 hours), and parametric recorders record information from various sensors - from coordinates, heading, speed and pitch to the revolutions of each engine. Each parameter is recorded several times per second, and with rapid changes, the recording frequency increases. Recording is carried out cyclically, as in car video recorders: new data overwrites the oldest. At the same time, the cycle duration is 17-25 hours, that is, it is guaranteed to be enough for any flight.

Voice and parametric recorders can be combined into one, but in any case the recordings are precisely time-bound. Meanwhile, parametric recorders do not record all flight parameters (although now there are at least 88 of them, and more recently, before 2002, there were only 29), but only those that can be useful in investigating disasters. Full “logs” (2,000 parameters) of what is happening on board are recorded by operational recorders: their data is used to analyze the actions of pilots, repair and maintenance of the aircraft, etc. - they have no protection, and after a disaster, data from them can no longer be obtained.

How to decrypt a black box?

The need to decrypt data from black boxes is as much a myth as the idea that the boxes are black.

The fact is that the data is not encrypted in any way, and the word “decryption” is used here in the same meaning as journalists deciphering a recording of an interview. The journalist listens to the voice recorder and writes the text, and a commission of experts reads the data from the media, processes it and writes it down in a form convenient for analysis and perception. That is, there is no encryption: the data can be read at any airport, there is no protection of data from prying eyes. And since black boxes are designed to analyze the causes of plane crashes in order to reduce the number of accidents in the future, there is no special protection against data modification. After all, if real reasons disaster needs to be silenced or distorted for political or some other reasons, then one can always claim that the recorders were severely damaged and it was impossible to read all the data.

True, in case of damage (and they are not so rare - about a third of all disasters), the data can still be restored - and the tape fragments are glued together and also processed special composition, and the contacts of the surviving microcircuits are soldered in order to connect them to the reader: the process is complex, it takes place in special laboratories and can take a long time.

Why "black box"?

Why are flight recorders called “black boxes”? There are several versions. For example, the name could come from the Second World War, when the first electronic modules began to be installed on military aircraft: they really looked like black boxes. Or, for example, the first recorders, even before the war, used photographic film for recording, so they should not have allowed light to pass through. However, we cannot exclude the influence of “What? Where? When?”: a black box in everyday life is a device whose operating principle (what is in the black box) does not matter, only the result obtained is important. Recorders have been installed en masse on civil aircraft since the early 1960s.

Flight recorders have room for improvement. According to experts, the most obvious and immediate prospect is recording video from different points visibility inside and outside the aircraft. Some experts claim that this will help, among other advantages, to solve the problem of transition from pointer instruments in the cockpit to displays: they say that old instruments “freeze” in an accident latest readings, but the displays are not. However, we should not forget that pointer instruments are still used today in addition to displays in case of failure of the latter.

The prospects of installing shootable floating recorders are also being considered: special sensors will record the collision of the aircraft with an obstacle, and at that moment the recorder will “eject” almost with a parachute - the principle is approximately the same as that of airbags in a car. In addition, in the future, aircraft will be able to broadcast in real time all the data recorded by black boxes to remote servers - then there will be no need to search for and decode the recorders.

Many people don't know what an airplane's black box looks like. Its correct name is flight recorder, make a spherical or cylindrical and are painted in a bright color, red or orange. The rounded shape of the recorder is made to better withstand external force, and the bright color will help you find the box faster . This article explains what a black box on an airplane is and everything that is interesting to know about this device.

Black box of the AN-24 aircraft

As the civil aviation Cases of air accidents have become more frequent. There was a need to record the operating parameters of equipment in order to learn about the causes and details of emergency situations. This information is very valuable for preventing the recurrence of disasters, correcting the causes of aircraft failures and loss of life.

The first "black box", which records flight parameters, appeared in 1939. It was designed by the French developers Usseno and Baudouin and was a light-beam oscilloscope that recorded reflections of a light beam on photographic film during flight. When the flight parameters, altitude or speed of the aircraft changed, a certain mirror was deflected, which cast a beam of light onto the film. In order to protect it from light exposure, the body of the device was painted black, which is how the name “black box” appeared.

Later, as the investigation into the accidents progressed, it became clear that having recordings of the crew at the time of the accident would have helped with this. In 1953, David Warren, an Australian scientist, proposed a device that combined a parametric recorder and a voice recorder. David used magnetic tape for recording; he packed the mechanism itself in asbestos wrapping and then in a steel case. This is where another version emerged as to why the recorder received such a name.

The name black box arose because the first devices looked like a closed box, the contents of which could not be viewed after installation on the aircraft. However, over time, they began to be painted in bright colors: red or orange, to make them easy to spot.

The first boxes contained recorders with paper tape and a clock mechanism with paper feeding, on which the readings of the aircraft's instruments were recorded with a pen and ink. Then they were replaced by photo oscilloscopes with recording on photographic paper, then with tape recorders with recording on steel wire, and then they learned to write on magnetic tape. And finally, in our time, readings are recorded on microcircuits, the so-called flash memory.

Older models of recorders use magnetic tape recording,

How does a recorder work?

Now let's look at the design of an airplane's black box. Since during disasters the black box experiences very large mechanical loads, comparable to the loads on an artillery shell and equal strength shock front from an atomic bomb explosion, the device body and its contents must withstand them.

The first standards in this area had requirements for the strength of mechanical acceleration (impact) up to 1000 g (where g is the acceleration of gravity), and now the requirements for the strength of the device have increased to 3000 g or more. To reduce the impact force, the recorder body has the form of a ball or cylinder with ends in the form of hemispheres. The protective housing is made of high-strength steel or titanium. This is the answer to the question of what the black box on the plane is made of.

The requirements of the modern standard include the following external influences. In addition to the enormous impact force, the device must withstand a half-hour fire and a depth of flooding in the sea of ​​up to 6 km for a month. Getting to deeper places in the World Ocean is unlikely.

Inside, the black box of the aircraft is designed like this: the electronic boards of the device are installed on additional shock absorbers. The recorder board itself is practically the same as an SSD drive, like in a laptop or external hard drive.

Some already outdated devices still have a tape recorder installed. But since they still meet the requirements of the standard, they continue to be used on airplanes.

In addition to recording parameter readings, the devices are equipped with ultrasonic beacons that make it easier to find recorders under water. There are light and radio beacons for searching in the mountains. They all have standard frequencies to distinguish them from other sources. All beacons must work for a long time; this requires batteries. But they become necessary only after an accident, and they can fly for many years. To prevent the batteries from self-discharging during this time, they are in a non-working position and are brought into working condition after an impact.

According to the standard, there is always an inscription on the case, possibly in several languages, Flight Recorder. Do not open” in English – “Aircraft recorder. Do not open"

Between the coils you can see the thinnest wire - it is on this that the old-style “black boxes” of the pilots write their speech.

What parameters are read

Since the first flight recorder was created, it has been constantly improved. The first recorders could record only five parameters:

• speed;
• height;
• direction;
• acceleration;
• time.

Modern flight recorders that are installed on airplanes can record 256 parameters, to name a few:

• air pressure;
• fuel consumption (instant);
• engine speed;
• steering wheel travel;
• true and barometric altitude;
• speed;
• remaining fuel.

All these parameters significantly help to uncover the causes of an aircraft accident.

Black box device

Where is the recorder located?

For reliability, so that at least one device is preserved, they are installed in several different places on the plane, mainly in the tail. Previously, one recorder was installed in the cockpit of the aircraft, and the second in the tail. Now both recorders are mounted in the tail section of the aircraft. The fact is that, according to statistics, the tail of the aircraft suffers less even when the fuselage collapses into several fragments. As a rule, the most swipe falls on the nose of the plane.

How is a black box decrypted?

Probably, many people think that the recording in the black box is encoded with some kind of encryption unknown to anyone except its developers. It turns out that there is no encryption and data protection from modification. The records are made in a form convenient for perception and further analysis. After all, the main purpose of the recorder is to assist in the investigation of plane crashes.

If the black box is severely damaged, its remains can be “restored.” For example, the remnants of the tapes are glued together and treated with a special mixture. Chips and memory cards are also restored by specialists so that they are ready to read information. Such work is very labor-intensive, time-consuming and carried out by highly qualified specialists.

Microcircuits and memory cards are restored by specialists

There are two types of devices:

• parametric (FDR);
• speech (CVR).

The first type records the main flight indicators and system conditions: altitude, speed, direction, indicators of the oil and fuel systems, engine speeds, landing gear and flaps position, coordinates, etc. The second type records conversations between pilots and other crew members, sounds in the cabin with passengers, in the cargo compartment, and several other places with noise sources. Recorders with combined registration are produced.

All recorders work in a ring, that is, the device records sound for 2 hours, then starts again from the beginning, wiping out the oldest recordings. Parameters are recorded several times per second; if they change abruptly, modern recorders increase the recording frequency.

According to the latest standards, 88 parameters must be recorded. In total, more than 2000 parameters can be recorded on an airplane; this is necessary for maintenance, but is not recorded in emergency recorders. The recording duration is just over a day, which is quite enough for civil aviation. Each parameter has a clear time stamp to correctly decipher the situation on board. But there is no encryption to protect against interception.

Directions for development of recorders

Flight recorders will always evolve and improve as technology advances. The developers see their immediate future in the fact that recording will be carried out both inside and outside the aircraft, using different viewpoints. The possibility of replacing all pointer instruments with devices with modern displays is being considered, because the pointers freeze forever during an accident. Nowadays, pointer instruments are used in conjunction with devices that have a screen.