Flight Data: Then, Now and Coming Soon · PDF fileFlight Data: Then, Now and Coming Soon by...

Flight Data: Then, Now and Coming Soon by

Mike Poole, P. Eng. CEO, Plane Sciences Inc.

Plane Sciences 2015 ©

Advancing Aviation Safety & Efficiency

through innovative technology

http://www.google.ca/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=Pe4ETl6yYu8E_M&tbnid=3rrRu0ENfT0yMM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http://www.fastcodesign.com/1669962/painless-work-computer-monitor-tracks-your-movements-and-corrects-your-posture&ei=QLZhUcHSLsmf2QXJmoC4Dg&bvm=bv.44770516,d.b2I&psig=AFQjCNGYjwVOvPJhUIsCzaP0IecQjconTQ&ust=1365444485120307

EARLY TECHNOLOGY TODAY’S TECHNOLOGY

Plane Sciences 2015 ©

FSF IASS 2015

Technology Evolution:

Flight Data Then:

• Early flight recorders had few parameters (5 on foil, 10-20 with digital tape)

• Army of people went to the site and few to the lab

• Recorder specialist job was to get the data off the box

• FDR was exclusively for accident investigation

Plane Sciences 2015 © FSF IASS 2015

• Solid state recorders; easy to download

• 1000+ parameters not uncommon; better to send an army to the lab; challenge is sifting through the data not getting the data off the box

• Quick Access Recorders are small, long duration and have ground-based wireless download options

• Real time telemetry is evolving rapidly


Flight Data Now:


Quote from Aviation Week (2015):

Both technologies [deployable + telemetry] are available today and were highly touted in the aftermath of the crash of Air France Flight 447 in June 2009, when it took five days to find wreckage and nearly two years to recover the recorders. Despite renewed pressure to act following MH370’s disappearance, neither technology is yet considered a “near-term” possibility, primarily due to the cost and time to retrofit the equipment into legacy fleets or build up substantial numbers of factory-equipped new aircraft.

Cost and time to retrofit are not the issue!

MH370/AF447


Deployable Recorders

Courtesy DRS



Courtesy DRS

How do you ‘detect the start of a crash’; risk of

premature deployment or no deployment



Courtesy DRS

Unit ‘lands safely away from crash site’; what

happens in a runway overrun where the aircraft stops and burns or a crash into a building?



Courtesy DRS

‘ELT transmits location’; without beacon better

chance of finding wreckage than a floating recorder



Courtesy DRS

Many commercial aviation accidents are in and

around airports; Headline: Cessna 172 crashes; hit by deployable

recorder!



Courtesy DRS

• Deployables have been around for 30+ years; not new technology by any means

• Triggered by frangible switches in the nose, wingtips, tail and hydrostatic switches under the tail

• F18 uses a pyro technique charge

• Can be triggered by accelerometers (g switch); g switches are highly problematic in the FDR/CVR world

• Deployment mechanism is high maintenance item


Deployable Reality

• Promoted during last Eurocae working groups (ED 112) in conjunction with combined dual redundant recorder recommendations from Swiss Air 111 and recently with MH370

• Military recovery experience is poor compared to fixed recorder civil experience which is +99%

• Investigation expert working group (Eurocae) conceded that a deployable recorder was acceptable as the second recorder as part of a dual redundant installation

• Voyage Data Recorder (IMO) concluded that ‘float free’ offers minimal benefit over fixed recorders; allows for both but deployment mechanism must inhibit deployment if beacon is not operational (becomes a fixed recorder)


Deployable Reality

• Deployable concept argues for exemptions from fire/impact requirements imposed on fixed recorders on the basis that the recorder is designed not to be in an accident (‘lands safely away from the crash site’)

• If you can design something not to be in an accident, we should design airplanes not to be in an accident and there would be no need for recorders!

March 2011: “Surfer…found the orange Deployable Flight Incident Recorder…lost at sea nearly six years earlier…


Will telemetry REPLACE the black box?

• Requires significant multi-country ground station infrastructure

• Who owns/controls access to the data?

• When an aircraft crashes in country ‘A’ and the data is stored in country ‘B’; how does country ‘A’ get it?

• Massive amounts of data shipped off the aircraft daily with no value unless there is an accident

Current FDR is a an self-managing distributed archive system and the data remains with the State of Occurrence

• Link integrity in unusual attitudes and bad weather?

• Ground or space based failures may affect data from 100’s or 1000’s of aircraft

• Unless voice is telemetered, the wreckage will still need to be found; voice is sensitive and ICAO Annex 13 para 5.12 is ambiguous and handled very differently among states

• Spectrum availability?...Spectrum is NOT INFINITE




• Current telemetry systems are much more expensive to operate than cost of on board recording

• For all the reasons presented, it is difficult to justify replacing the current on-board recordings with telemetry solutions given the relatively low accident rate and high black box recovery rate

• Telemetry replacing the ‘black box’ is not likely going to happen in the foreseeable future



Streaming Flight Data NOW

• Trial done with Plane Sciences, FLYHT and AIRINC at FIRST AIR in Ottawa, Canada; system operational NOW

• Dispatch request/on board condition or pilot action can trigger real time streaming of A717 flight data

• Snapshots of time ‘critical’ events automatic


Streaming Flight Data Now


Streaming Flight Data NOW

• It is feasible to data stream all the data IF the number of aircraft required to do this at any one time is SMALL (send historical

data backwards as fast as possible in addition to real time forwards)

A crew action (PAN, PAN, PAN, We have smoke in the cockpit) - SR111

An on board condition (unusual attitude, engine out, etc.)

A ground request (AOC, Homeland Security)

• Homeland Security could interrogate aircraft for cases like MH370 and terrorist 9/11 events

• ‘TELEMETRY ON DEMAND’ has huge potential to AUGMENT the on-board FDR system


Flight Tracking

• Industry is developing better tracking in the wake of MH370;

• Once the ARINC 717 data is accessed, adding Pitch, Roll, Airspeed, Groundspeed, Thrust of each engine, Cabin Pressure (the early generation parameter requirements) in addition to basic position information & heading would be negligible additional cost

• Consider also sending RA’s and GPWS as part of routine flight tracking as well (ATC often does not know what the crew is dealing with)


Coming Soon.. The Future


Virtual Co-pilot (advanced Flight Following)

Single pilot IFR operations with one ‘co-pilot’ on the ground supporting multiple flights with data snapshots every five seconds and ability to trigger real time streaming when needed

N67852, I have you on real

time streaming now and

can see you flying level at

5000 feet, 10 degrees

nose up pitch, 90 knots

indicated and 3 miles off

course to the east…


Flight Crew FOQA - Debrief

Technology permits confidential flight crew FOQA debrief for self-assessment immediately after a flight via internet browser


Utopic System

FLIGHT DATA-FOQA, OTHER, DATABASE(s)

FLIGHT DATA-SOQA DATABASE(s)

FOQA DATA BASE ACCESSIBLE FOR SIMULATOR TRAINING BRIEF / DEBRIEF

EVIDENCED BASED SIMULATOR TRAINING

CREW DEBRIEF/COCKPIT FOQA

SNAPSHOT FOR ‘IMMEDIATE NEED’ EVENTS and FLIGHT

TRACKING

TELEMETRY ON DEMAND – FORWARDS REAL TIME and BACWARDS AS FAST AS POSSIBLE

DIAGNOSE COMPLEX EVENTS

GROUND DOWNLOAD AFTER FLIGHT

FLIGHT DATA CENTER(S)


Summary

• Increased use of telemetry for • Tracking – should send 10-20 key parameters every five

seconds

• Snapshot of URGENT events for immediate action (advanced ACARS)

• ‘On Demand’ Streaming in an EMERGENCY; triggered by ground request/pilot action/or on-board condition

• Not going to replace the on board FDR despite media perception

• Deployable recorders are likely not the ‘savior’ a lot of high profile think they are


Summary

• Many people are promoting one fixed combined FDR/CVR recorder and one combined deployable recorder as the way forward

• More modern forward looking solution is one fixed combined FDR/CVR and one telemetry unit for tracking/snapshots and ‘ON DEMAND’ full source flight data


Technology Integration is needed…

Integrated Flight Data System

for multiple functions/uses:

Flight Tracking 10-20 parameters (minimal cost impact)

Wireless download on ground for FOQA

No need for separate QAR

Snapshots of urgent events with full flight data

Telemetry on Demand streaming mode in an emergency

‘Universal Realtime Flight Incident Recorder & Event Detector’


Technology Integration is needed…

Integrated Flight Data System

for multiple functions/uses:

Flight Tracking 10-20 parameters (minimal cost impact)

Wireless download on ground for FOQA

No need for separate QAR

Snapshots of urgent events with full flight data

Telemetry on Demand streaming mode in an emergency

‘Universal Realtime Flight Incident Recorder & Event Detector’

‘U R FIRED’

Date post:	06-Feb-2018
Category:	Documents
Upload:	trinhkiet
View:	215 times
Download:	0 times

Flight Data: Then, Now and Coming Soon · PDF fileFlight Data: Then, Now and Coming Soon by...

Documents