Black Boxes for GA Aircraft...Good or Bad?

On Mon, 30 Oct 2006 10:51:24 -0600, "Gig 601XL Builder"
wrDOTgiaconaATcox.net wrote:


"RK Henry" wrote in message
.. .
On 27 Oct 2006 08:08:48 -0700, "Greengears"
wrote:

Got this article in an AOPA email about black boxes being installed in
the Cirrus SR20 and SR22. Do you think that all flight schools should
have these type of black boxes installed in their aircrafts?


... It
could save up to $1,000 a year in owner insurance, a company official
estimated. ...

Savings of up to $1,000/yr in insurance? Holy cow! How much does it
cost to insure one of those things otherwise?

Does that mean that if I put one on my Warrior that I could insure for
free?

RK Henry

If the insurance company thinks there enough value there for them to give
you a $1k/year discount for installing a $5k box it would seem they would be
better off just paying for the box and keeping their $1k per year. Then they
start really making money after 5 years.

My main point was that I don't pay as much as $1,000/yr now. A $1,000
discount would have them paying me. Could that $5k box really be that
valuable?

RK Henry

"jmk" wrote in message
ups.com...

Mxsmanic wrote:
That assumes it survives the wreck.

Small, solid-state devices can survive some extraordinarily high
accelerations, even if they aren't necessarily built to do so.
There's certainly a good chance that something like a flash memory
device will survive intact.

We designed something similar a few years back (still being evaluated
by the SE FSDO, I believe) although our goal was long-term recording of
stress on the airframe. We designed it to include optional aircraft
data, but your average 30 year old C-172 or Warrior just doesn't have
much in the way of electrical data to record. None of the usual stuff
(control position) is there.

You could instrument everything of course, the the price would be
prohibitive (i.e. no one would pay for it).

While we were most interested in things like pulling so many G's that
the wings came off, the FAA rejected our first design because we could
potentially lose the last 100 ms. or so of data (i.e. the actual crash,
after the wings pulled off). We hadn't considered that important (it's
sort of "after the fact"), but they pointed out that in a lot of
mountain crashes the first sign of a problem is hitting the mountain.
We implemented a ferro-ram buffer (in front of the main storage) - both
non-volatile. Even if the pins got pulled off the IC, the die could
still be read (with difficulty).

Sounds like the FAA is missing the point. If they lose the last 100 ms
before the airplane hits the mountain, big deal. Don't the previous 5 (or
30) minutes tell the story.. Either 1) The airplane was cruising along at 8k
ft and hit a 10k mountain. Or: 2) The airplane stalled and spun down into
the ground. Or: 3) Whatever.

I just don't see how that last 1/10 second is gonna tell anyone much...

KB

Kyle Boatright writes:

I just don't see how that last 1/10 second is gonna tell anyone much...

Ask NASA.

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