My prediction for next item of mandated aircraft equipment
Discussion
Automatic position reporting equipment located so it is is not accessible from inside the aircraft and with a power supply which cannot be disabled from inside the aircraft.
Further predictions:
Transmit via VHF, then satellite if VHF not available
Transmit aircraft ID, location, altitude and heading. Maybe speed too.
Transmit unencrypted as text at 15 to 30 min intervals
Will be independent of transponder. May be an upgrade to ACARS or may be new equipment.
Further predictions:
Transmit via VHF, then satellite if VHF not available
Transmit aircraft ID, location, altitude and heading. Maybe speed too.
Transmit unencrypted as text at 15 to 30 min intervals
Will be independent of transponder. May be an upgrade to ACARS or may be new equipment.
creampuff said:
Automatic position reporting equipment located so it is is not accessible from inside the aircraft and with a power supply which cannot be disabled from inside the aircraft.
It's never going to happen on safety grounds. Crew must have a way of isolating any electrical power device on board the a/c in case of a fault causing fire etc.aeropilot said:
creampuff said:
Automatic position reporting equipment located so it is is not accessible from inside the aircraft and with a power supply which cannot be disabled from inside the aircraft.
It's never going to happen on safety grounds. Crew must have a way of isolating any electrical power device on board the a/c in case of a fault causing fire etc.creampuff said:
Automatic position reporting equipment located so it is is not accessible from inside the aircraft and with a power supply which cannot be disabled from inside the aircraft.
Further predictions:
Transmit via VHF, then satellite if VHF not available
Transmit aircraft ID, location, altitude and heading. Maybe speed too.
Transmit unencrypted as text at 15 to 30 min intervals
Will be independent of transponder. May be an upgrade to ACARS or may be new equipment.
What happens when it is parked up? Perhaps there should be a 'cleaner's key'. Further predictions:
Transmit via VHF, then satellite if VHF not available
Transmit aircraft ID, location, altitude and heading. Maybe speed too.
Transmit unencrypted as text at 15 to 30 min intervals
Will be independent of transponder. May be an upgrade to ACARS or may be new equipment.
So, rogue cleaner or rogue pilot? The present system may not be perfect but is there realistically a better one?
aeropilot said:
It's never going to happen on safety grounds. Crew must have a way of isolating any electrical power device on board the a/c in case of a fault causing fire etc.
I'm sure it is not beyond the wit of man to work out a solution to that. The power requirements are minimal; you could put the gadget in a fireproof box and have it battery powered. Or powered by aircraft power with pilot accessible circuit breaker but charging an independent internal battery in the event of aircraft power loss. Since the power requirement is minimal, the compartment and battery size would also be minimal. If you put a GPS in there too, that would eliminate the possibility of interference by someone pulling the circuit breakers to other aircraft devices which would otherwise need to feed data to the new device.creampuff said:
I'm sure it is not beyond the wit of man to work out a solution to that. The power requirements are minimal; you could put the gadget in a fireproof box and have it battery powered. Or powered by aircraft power with pilot accessible circuit breaker but charging an independent internal battery in the event of aircraft power loss. Since the power requirement is minimal, the compartment and battery size would also be minimal. If you put a GPS in there too, that would eliminate the possibility of interference by someone pulling the circuit breakers to other aircraft devices which would otherwise need to feed data to the new device.
You haven't described anything that Johnny Jihadist couldn't render ineffective by the use of a $25 GPS jammer and the large fire-axe invariably attached to the bulkhead at the back of the flight-deck.eharding said:
You haven't described anything that Johnny Jihadist couldn't render ineffective by the use of a $25 GPS jammer and the large fire-axe invariably attached to the bulkhead at the back of the flight-deck.
Well we aren't going to work out the full specs in this thread but you can solve the problem of the fire axe by locating the gadget in an inaccessible part of the a/c.The other potential problems, solve by making the device slightly more sophisticated and a combination of these to counter any GPS jamming:
- accelerometers plus dead reckoning
- little camera and solar or celestial navigation
creampuff said:
Well we aren't going to work out the full specs in this thread but you can solve the problem of the fire axe by locating the gadget in an inaccessible part of the a/c.
The other potential problems, solve by making the device slightly more sophisticated and a combination of these to counter any GPS jamming:
- accelerometers plus dead reckoning
- little camera and solar or celestial navigation
Might as well just remove the axe. No bloody point in having it if it's inaccessible.The other potential problems, solve by making the device slightly more sophisticated and a combination of these to counter any GPS jamming:
- accelerometers plus dead reckoning
- little camera and solar or celestial navigation
There are already accelerometers in the form of inertial reference units. What's the point of the little camera? We already have those to monitor the cockpit door entry.
I presume this post of yours is in response to MH370? I freak like this aint going to change much in the short term.
A determined, resourced and trained terrorist can never be stopped in my opinion. With regard to catastrophic failure in flight, well I think birds present a greater and immediate threat. Going to kill them all off?
Chuck328 said:
There are already accelerometers in the form of inertial reference units. What's the point of the little camera? We already have those to monitor the cockpit door entry.
This unit is to be located nowhere near the cockpit and not accessible from inside the aircraft. Thus the axe is irrelevant. Behind the rear pressure bulkhead may work. The camera is not to transmit pictures. This unit will be very low bandwidth, so it will transmit text data only, probably less than 1kb data per transmisson (excluding whatever handshaking goes on). The camera idea is in response to the suggestion that there would be a GPS jammer. The camera is for solar or celestial navigation (ie take photo of stars, work out where you are); the same technology which has been used for decades in ballistic missiles. Dead reckoning and a bunch of gyros or accelerometers should also work, but it may be the hijacker puts the aircraft through a series of extreme manoeuvers which overwhelms an inertial navigation system. Of course you could also say that somebody would jam the VHF and/or satellite communications frequencies for transmission of the data, but at least in the case of MH370 that appears not to have happened.
Or maybe it could just ping multiple satellites and use triangulation to determine position.
I still can't see any reason why it could not be:
- Safe
- Low power
- Low bandwidth
- Fully autonomous
- Very, very difficult to circumvent
Edited by creampuff on Sunday 16th March 08:37
MarkK said:
Max_Torque said:
Real time, cockpit and cabin video streaming.
Good luck finding the bandwidth to transmit real time from every commercial aircraft in the skies.Edited by anonymous-user on Sunday 16th March 12:32
Crossflow Kid said:
For god's sale this is PH!........
Shorter skirts for hosties.
I take it you've never flown with Southwest Airlines? Shorter skirts for hosties.
An excellent service, promp, punctual, friendly and efficient staff etc but the hosties all seemed to have legs designed for rugby, not serving drinks and pretzels at 30,000ft+
Max_Torque said:
Cockpit/cabin cameras wouldn't "stream" data, they would only do so when requested by a SAT squawk that matched their ID. So, normally they would be doing nothing and costing nothing, but in the event of a suspicious event or anomaly, they could be switched on and a good idea of the status of the flight could be obtained by ground based resources etc I can think if a million scenarios, from airways checking on reports of "drunk or unruly" passengers to full on hijacks and technical issues etc. Added to which, these days, with cheap solid state memory, that data COULD be streamed continuously to the FDRs and help any post accident investigation enormously (imagine for example the AF447 crash investigation if the investigators had access to HD cockpit camera info?)
I agree in an ideal world that would be helpful. Problem is who pays for all that equipment and infrastructure for a system that in all likelihood will be never used? Don't underestimate how difficult it is to transmit lots of data around an aircraft and to the ground, you can't just slap ethernet everywhere on a safety critical system.Edited by Max_Torque on Sunday 16th March 12:32
It's the nuclear deterrent problem, the paying public will moan at the expense of air travel due to all these safety systems that are never used (because they work), or they will moan that they don't exist on the rare occassions they are needed.
As harsh as it sounds, in a few weeks time the media will get bored, the public will forget and everyone will just want to get to their destination cost effectively.
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