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
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
Plane Sciences 2015 © FSF IASS 2015
Flight Data Now:
Plane Sciences 2015 © FSF IASS 2015
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
Plane Sciences 2015 © FSF IASS 2015
Deployable Recorders
Courtesy DRS
How do you ‘detect the start of a crash’; risk of
premature deployment or no deployment
Plane Sciences 2015 © FSF IASS 2015
Deployable Recorders
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?
Plane Sciences 2015 © FSF IASS 2015
Deployable Recorders
Courtesy DRS
‘ELT transmits location’; without beacon better
chance of finding wreckage than a floating recorder
Plane Sciences 2015 © FSF IASS 2015
Deployable Recorders
Courtesy DRS
Many commercial aviation accidents are in and
around airports; Headline: Cessna 172 crashes; hit by deployable
recorder!
Plane Sciences 2015 © FSF IASS 2015
Deployable Recorders
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
Plane Sciences 2015 © FSF IASS 2015
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)
Plane Sciences 2015 © FSF IASS 2015
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…
Plane Sciences 2015 © FSF IASS 2015
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
Plane Sciences 2015 © FSF IASS 2015
Will telemetry REPLACE the black box?
Plane Sciences 2015 © FSF IASS 2015
• 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
Will telemetry REPLACE the black box?
Plane Sciences 2015 © FSF IASS 2015
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
Plane Sciences 2015 © FSF IASS 2015
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
Plane Sciences 2015 © FSF IASS 2015
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)
Plane Sciences 2015 © FSF IASS 2015
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…
Plane Sciences 2015 © FSF IASS 2015
Flight Crew FOQA - Debrief
Technology permits confidential flight crew FOQA debrief for self-assessment immediately after a flight via internet browser
Plane Sciences 2015 © FSF IASS 2015
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)
Plane Sciences 2015 © FSF IASS 2015
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
Plane Sciences 2015 © FSF IASS 2015
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
Plane Sciences 2015 © FSF IASS 2015
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’
Plane Sciences 2015 © FSF IASS 2015
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’