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Post by the light works on Dec 6, 2015 14:53:02 GMT
And now, for some good news: An 8-year-old boy received a gift package from Delta Airlines after he sent them a proposal for a possible method to locate planes that have become lost at sea. The method involves equipping planes with weighted balloons that have RF transmitters inside of them. In the event of a crash into water, the balloons will inflate and float to the surface, where the weights will hopefully keep them in place long enough for searchers to get out there, at which point the balloons will guide them to the general vicinity of the crash. Nice of the Delta guy to acknowledge the kid for his idea, even though it's not as "amazing" and "genius" as the article suggests. The ocean is pretty deep in most places and the currents quite strong, so the odds of getting someone to the crash site fast enough for the balloons to not have moved too far away to be of use are slim to none. Still, he's only 8 years old. The fact that he even cares enough about the problem to try to come up with a viable solution is impressive and the guy from Delta was right to encourage him. Worst case, he made a kid happy by acknowledging his commitment. Best case, he encouraged him to keep thinking and learning, possibly inspiring him to become an aerospace engineer or something when he grows up. And the idea isn't all bad. It's still a lot more thought out than what my kid came home with the other day... I see cyber addressed some of this, already. as cyber said, the drift is not necessarily a bad thing - particularly if it has a powerful enough transmitter to give off a very loud initial "ping" and if it has onboard GPS logging. the trick would be to take the initial concept and develop it into something reliable and effective. - while retaining the simplicity that would keep it from having high tech errors. on my river, when someone goes off dead man's curve, the sheriff's department uses a boat with a fish finder to locate the car, and then simply tosses a locator rig over the side of the boat. it consists of a relatively heavy fishing weight, on a fishing line, with a bouyant spool. when the salvage diver gets there to hook up the tow truck, he simply picks up the spool and the driver maneuvers the boat until the line is more or less straight down. even more creatively, people who race snowmobiles on lakes put a basket on the back of the machine - it has a heavy gauge fishing line (meaning heavy enough to lift the snowmobile) tied between the frame of the machine and a gallon jug. when the driver screws up and the machine sinks, the bottle floats, and they just bring out a boat with a winch, and haul the machine back up.
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Post by Cybermortis on Dec 6, 2015 16:31:54 GMT
A possible design would be for a thick plastic ball comprised of multiple smaller compartments with a central compartment containing the transmitter, GPS, data recorder, batteries and a small bottle of pressured gas surrounded by padding. The ball would be designed so that the compartments could be removed so the equipment could be accessed for replacement/repair at an airport rather than having to send it off to the manufacturer.
A cable would run to the 'bottom' of the ball and to the outside to a weighted tube, the cable allowing the system to be accessed by plugging it into a laptop for safety checks, recharging and so it could be plugged into an aircraft's computer system. The latter would allow it to act as a very basic flight recorder, allowing a search team to access the speed and heading of the aircraft at the moment the device was activated - further aiding in estimating the area in which they should be searching. The cable would also allow for automatic deployment when specific criteria are met, or even manual release.
On activation the gas canister activates, inflating the compartments allowing it to float and cushioning the equipment when it hits the water. (It might also be capable of cushioning an impact on land, which would mean that the device has added utility). The GPS tracker also activates on deployment, followed by the beacon a few seconds later. The weighted tube helps to keep the device 'upright' and stable in water, and might also be fitted with something that sends out an sonar ping that could be picked up by ships - most search operations tend to include military ships, which come with sonar as standard, and there are sonar listening arrays in the oceans that would be more than capable of picking up such pings at very long ranges (longer than the transmitter would be capable of) and passing them onto warships.
The only problems with this device are;
Making the equipment tough and light enough to survive the impact. Having multiple compartments would make it unlikely that the device would sink if the ball is punctured.
Where/how to fit the system to an aircraft. Fitting it inside an aircraft would require some way to remove the external panels during deployment. Such a system would need to be fast, fully automatic and capable of being triggered by the device itself without the need for signals or power from the aircraft. It would also need to be capable of deploying both in the air, without doing more damage to the aircraft by sending bits into the engine, and underwater. Of course this would also mean that the system would not only need to be designed so that it is highly unlikely it would be triggered by accident during normal flight. But it would also need to be designed so that if it was accidentally activated it would not prevent the aircraft from continuing to fly safely for long periods - if this happens halfway over the Pacific you want to make sure that the aircraft can still make it to the nearest airport without trouble.
External fittings would solve some of these problems, but raise issues of aerodynamics along with the same problem of making sure that deployment isn't going to cause further problems by damaging the aircraft by slamming into it.
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Post by GTCGreg on Dec 6, 2015 17:39:22 GMT
I really think the easiest solution is just uploading the black box data, including GPS information, in real time. That way, if the plane goes down, you know exactly where and why. If they can give the passengers satellite WiFi, there is no reason they can't upload the black box data in real time to the airlines home office.
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Post by OziRiS on Dec 6, 2015 21:43:07 GMT
Nice of the Delta guy to acknowledge the kid for his idea, even though it's not as "amazing" and "genius" as the article suggests. The ocean is pretty deep in most places and the currents quite strong, so the odds of getting someone to the crash site fast enough for the balloons to not have moved too far away to be of use are slim to none. Still, he's only 8 years old. The fact that he even cares enough about the problem to try to come up with a viable solution is impressive and the guy from Delta was right to encourage him. Worst case, he made a kid happy by acknowledging his commitment. Best case, he encouraged him to keep thinking and learning, possibly inspiring him to become an aerospace engineer or something when he grows up. And the idea isn't all bad. Actually it strikes me as a perfectly valid idea, bar some of the specifics of design to make sure its reliable. While such a design is going to drift on the currents, the direction and speed of travel could be measured either using existing oceanic data or by the beacon having a GPS tracker and recorder as part of its design that records is position the moment it activates. Even if this doesn't give you the exact location of a downed aircraft, it would reduce the primary search area from a thousand miles to less than fifty. It is also going to be the case that anything or anyone that floated up from the crash would also be drifting on the currents, so would be in the same general area as the device. Again, while this would not give you the exact position of anyone in the water it would dramatically reduce the search area. Hadn't thought of it like that, but you're right. While it may not provide SAR crews with an exact location, it does narrow it down a lot. Being a fairly low tech solution, there's also less risk of critical components failing, which is always a good thing. And it's relatively cheap.
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Post by Cybermortis on Dec 6, 2015 22:12:38 GMT
I really think the easiest solution is just uploading the black box data, including GPS information, in real time. That way, if the plane goes down, you know exactly where and why. If they can give the passengers satellite WiFi, there is no reason they can't upload the black box data in real time to the airlines home office. And who is going to pay for the construction and maintenance of the server needed to store all this information? How can you be assured that you will have a stable connection at all times? Weather conditions could result in the signal being lost...and an alert being sounded for no reason. To say nothing about such a system actually working in all parts of the world.
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Post by OziRiS on Dec 6, 2015 22:28:12 GMT
I really think the easiest solution is just uploading the black box data, including GPS information, in real time. That way, if the plane goes down, you know exactly where and why. If they can give the passengers satellite WiFi, there is no reason they can't upload the black box data in real time to the airlines home office. And who is going to pay for the construction and maintenance of the server needed to store all this information? How can you be assured that you will have a stable connection at all times? Weather conditions could result in the signal being lost...and an alert being sounded for no reason. To say nothing about such a system actually working in all parts of the world. And to say nothing about smaller airlines perhaps not being able to afford such a system. I think part of the appeal of the kid's idea is the affordability. To address the auto deploy function and placement on the plane: The device could be added as a pod on/under the tail of the plane, ensuring that even if it activates by accident, it would fall off behind the plane and eliminate any risk of damage to the fuselage or engines. As for auto deploy, most crashes where such a system will be needed afterwards would entail rapid descent, followed by immmense G-forces. I'm thinking placing an altimeter in one of your proposed "bubbles" and a G-meter in another, both set up to trigger the auto deploy function if certain values are reached. The altimeter could even be set to work in conjunction with the GPS, so the system doesn't auto deploy until the plane is X feet above sea level. Over land, it's not all that important that it releases before the crash, as the plane doesn't tend to disappear. The pod on/under the tail of the fuselage could be released by small primer charges or something similar blowing it clean off the plane.
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Post by the light works on Dec 6, 2015 23:39:58 GMT
I really think the easiest solution is just uploading the black box data, including GPS information, in real time. That way, if the plane goes down, you know exactly where and why. If they can give the passengers satellite WiFi, there is no reason they can't upload the black box data in real time to the airlines home office. And who is going to pay for the construction and maintenance of the server needed to store all this information? How can you be assured that you will have a stable connection at all times? Weather conditions could result in the signal being lost...and an alert being sounded for no reason. To say nothing about such a system actually working in all parts of the world. no to mention the fact that usually the first indication people have that a plane is in trouble is if they lose contact with it. - and they usually know where it is that they lost contact.
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Post by the light works on Dec 6, 2015 23:41:17 GMT
And who is going to pay for the construction and maintenance of the server needed to store all this information? How can you be assured that you will have a stable connection at all times? Weather conditions could result in the signal being lost...and an alert being sounded for no reason. To say nothing about such a system actually working in all parts of the world. And to say nothing about smaller airlines perhaps not being able to afford such a system. I think part of the appeal of the kid's idea is the affordability. To address the auto deploy function and placement on the plane: The device could be added as a pod on/under the tail of the plane, ensuring that even if it activates by accident, it would fall off behind the plane and eliminate any risk of damage to the fuselage or engines. As for auto deploy, most crashes where such a system will be needed afterwards would entail rapid descent, followed by immmense G-forces. I'm thinking placing an altimeter in one of your proposed "bubbles" and a G-meter in another, both set up to trigger the auto deploy function if certain values are reached. The altimeter could even be set to work in conjunction with the GPS, so the system doesn't auto deploy until the plane is X feet above sea level. Over land, it's not all that important that it releases before the crash, as the plane doesn't tend to disappear. The pod on/under the tail of the fuselage could be released by small primer charges or something similar blowing it clean off the plane. to make it even more simple, they could find a way to make it so the force of a crash would simply break it off the plane.
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Post by OziRiS on Dec 7, 2015 0:12:48 GMT
And to say nothing about smaller airlines perhaps not being able to afford such a system. I think part of the appeal of the kid's idea is the affordability. To address the auto deploy function and placement on the plane: The device could be added as a pod on/under the tail of the plane, ensuring that even if it activates by accident, it would fall off behind the plane and eliminate any risk of damage to the fuselage or engines. As for auto deploy, most crashes where such a system will be needed afterwards would entail rapid descent, followed by immmense G-forces. I'm thinking placing an altimeter in one of your proposed "bubbles" and a G-meter in another, both set up to trigger the auto deploy function if certain values are reached. The altimeter could even be set to work in conjunction with the GPS, so the system doesn't auto deploy until the plane is X feet above sea level. Over land, it's not all that important that it releases before the crash, as the plane doesn't tend to disappear. The pod on/under the tail of the fuselage could be released by small primer charges or something similar blowing it clean off the plane. to make it even more simple, they could find a way to make it so the force of a crash would simply break it off the plane. I thought about that too, but came to the conclusion that while most planes go down belly first, there's no certainty that they always will, so where to place it to make sure it breaks off? And even more importantly, how to make sure it breaks off but doesn't get broken? A controlled explosion (or even just a mechanical system, perhaps gas or spring powered) that "shoots" it off the back of the plane would at least give it a somewhat better chance of surviving the ordeal. You could even supply something like that with a small parachute or air brake system to both make sure it isn't shot too far away from the plane and to soften the landing a little.
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Post by the light works on Dec 7, 2015 1:46:52 GMT
to make it even more simple, they could find a way to make it so the force of a crash would simply break it off the plane. I thought about that too, but came to the conclusion that while most planes go down belly first, there's no certainty that they always will, so where to place it to make sure it breaks off? And even more importantly, how to make sure it breaks off but doesn't get broken? A controlled explosion (or even just a mechanical system, perhaps gas or spring powered) that "shoots" it off the back of the plane would at least give it a somewhat better chance of surviving the ordeal. You could even supply something like that with a small parachute or air brake system to both make sure it isn't shot too far away from the plane and to soften the landing a little. some form of shock mount would seem to be the best option, there. an armored casing that the impact of the crash would break loose, and trigger some form of time delay before the casing breached and the beacon deployed.
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Post by GTCGreg on Dec 7, 2015 2:12:37 GMT
I really think the easiest solution is just uploading the black box data, including GPS information, in real time. That way, if the plane goes down, you know exactly where and why. If they can give the passengers satellite WiFi, there is no reason they can't upload the black box data in real time to the airlines home office. And who is going to pay for the construction and maintenance of the server needed to store all this information? How can you be assured that you will have a stable connection at all times? Weather conditions could result in the signal being lost...and an alert being sounded for no reason. To say nothing about such a system actually working in all parts of the world. If you can't get signal from a plane still in the air, you won't get one from a balloon floating on the water's surface. And this system would also work over land. Even if the on board electronics is completely destroyed, you still have the information just before impact. As for cost, all it would take is equipping each aircraft with a satellite link transceiver. The GPS and data acquisition system is already in the plane for the black box. On the receiving end, you just have a computer logging in the data on a continuous basis. After a period of time, such as days, months or even years, the data is overwritten. Other than routine maintainance, the only time someone needs to check the data is if the plane disappears. Perfect or not, this will be the system they end up implementing.
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Post by the light works on Dec 7, 2015 3:34:39 GMT
And who is going to pay for the construction and maintenance of the server needed to store all this information? How can you be assured that you will have a stable connection at all times? Weather conditions could result in the signal being lost...and an alert being sounded for no reason. To say nothing about such a system actually working in all parts of the world. If you can't get signal from a plane still in the air, you won't get one from a balloon floating on the water's surface. And this system would also work over land. Even if the on board electronics is completely destroyed, you still have the information just before impact. As for cost, all it would take is equipping each aircraft with a satellite link transceiver. The GPS and data acquisition system is already in the plane for the black box. On the receiving end, you just have a computer logging in the data on a continuous basis. After a period of time, such as days, months or even years, the data is overwritten. Other than routine maintainance, the only time someone needs to check the data is if the plane disappears. Perfect or not, this will be the system they end up implementing. the balloon will be sending out a very different signal from the one the plane has ceased sending. certainly, major airlines will soon go to digital satellite communications. it will require a bit less infrastructure maintenance than the current systems. but if something happens to the electronics, it will still go down. saying the balloon signal won't go out if the uplink won't go out is like saying the coast guard won't see a flare if they can't hear the ship's radio.
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Post by GTCGreg on Dec 7, 2015 4:06:38 GMT
If you can't get signal from a plane still in the air, you won't get one from a balloon floating on the water's surface. And this system would also work over land. Even if the on board electronics is completely destroyed, you still have the information just before impact. As for cost, all it would take is equipping each aircraft with a satellite link transceiver. The GPS and data acquisition system is already in the plane for the black box. On the receiving end, you just have a computer logging in the data on a continuous basis. After a period of time, such as days, months or even years, the data is overwritten. Other than routine maintenance, the only time someone needs to check the data is if the plane disappears. Perfect or not, this will be the system they end up implementing. the balloon will be sending out a very different signal from the one the plane has ceased sending. certainly, major airlines will soon go to digital satellite communications. it will require a bit less infrastructure maintenance than the current systems. but if something happens to the electronics, it will still go down. saying the balloon signal won't go out if the uplink won't go out is like saying the coast guard won't see a flare if they can't hear the ship's radio. If the coast guard, or any other ship is close enough to see a flare, then yes, they can pick up a direct signal from a transmitter floating on the surface of the ocean. But if the emergency transmitter is sitting in the middle of the ocean, the only way it will be able to send an emergency signal is via satellite. There is no direct ground communication system that can reliably communicate from the surface of the ocean for more than a few hundred miles at most. You must use a satellite based system in any case. That's the way all current ELB's operate. They communicate with the SarSat international satellite system on a frequency of 406MHz. The Emergency Location Beacon (ELB) only transmits after a crash, as would your balloon deployment system. The continuous data upload system I am talking about works all the time, crash or no crash. The chances of it being able to communicate with a satellite before impact is a lot better than an ELB doing so floating on the surface. Even if some catastrophic incident happens to the aircraft and knocks out the com link, you are still going to have a pretty good idea of where that happened and even a good possibility of what the incident was based on the black box data that you have already received. Yes, your balloon based system would add a level of redundancy provided it survived the crash and was able to deploy. But I would think the money would be better spent on an all electronic continuous data communication system that wasn't dependent on surviving a crash.
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Post by the light works on Dec 7, 2015 4:23:48 GMT
the balloon will be sending out a very different signal from the one the plane has ceased sending. certainly, major airlines will soon go to digital satellite communications. it will require a bit less infrastructure maintenance than the current systems. but if something happens to the electronics, it will still go down. saying the balloon signal won't go out if the uplink won't go out is like saying the coast guard won't see a flare if they can't hear the ship's radio. If the coast guard, or any other ship is close enough to see a flare, then yes, they can pick up a direct signal from a transmitter floating on the surface of the ocean. But if the emergency transmitter is sitting in the middle of the ocean, the only way it will be able to send an emergency signal is via satellite. There is no direct ground communication system that can reliably communicate from the surface of the ocean for more than a few hundred miles at most. You must use a satellite based system in any case. That's the way all current ELB's operate. They communicate with the SarSat international satellite system on a frequency of 406MHz. The Emergency Location Beacon (ELB) only transmits after a crash, as would your balloon deployment system. The continuous data upload system I am talking about works all the time, crash or no crash. The chances of it being able to communicate with a satellite before impact is a lot better than an ELB doing so floating on the surface. Even if some catastrophic incident happens to the aircraft and knocks out the com link, you are still going to have a pretty good idea of where that happened and even a good possibility of what the incident was based on the black box data that you have already received. are you forgetting I know exactly how reliable digital satellite communication is? the balloon ELB is a redundant system, to be used in case other systems fail. the advantage is has is that it sends a very simple message, rather than the advanced telemetry the monitoring system is sending. rather than JUST sending it to the satellite, it would also be sending it on common emergency channels. I actually proposed a similar system for a rather popular hiking trail in my area. it happens to be 2 miles long and an additional 2 miles from cell phone range - and the common place for people to fall and break their ankle is at the far end. when we get there, we basically let dispatch know we are on our way to retrieve the patent, and they won't be hearing from us until we are done. this because our handheld radios are also out of range of anything. if we had a solar charged emergency radio that could send a simple squawk to dispatch from the far end of the trail, we could save our patients up to an hour of waiting time before medics get there.
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Post by OziRiS on Dec 7, 2015 7:57:14 GMT
And who is going to pay for the construction and maintenance of the server needed to store all this information? How can you be assured that you will have a stable connection at all times? Weather conditions could result in the signal being lost...and an alert being sounded for no reason. To say nothing about such a system actually working in all parts of the world. If you can't get signal from a plane still in the air, you won't get one from a balloon floating on the water's surface. And this system would also work over land. Even if the on board electronics is completely destroyed, you still have the information just before impact. As for cost, all it would take is equipping each aircraft with a satellite link transceiver. The GPS and data acquisition system is already in the plane for the black box. On the receiving end, you just have a computer logging in the data on a continuous basis. After a period of time, such as days, months or even years, the data is overwritten. Other than routine maintainance, the only time someone needs to check the data is if the plane disappears. Perfect or not, this will be the system they end up implementing. But what if the satellite uplink is lost while the plane is still at 35,000 feet, doing almost 500 knots? At that speed and altitude, from the point where uplink is lost to the point where the plane hits the ground/water, it can cover a lot of distance, making it very difficult to find afterwards. This was more or less what happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 last year. The sattelite uplink was reestablished intermittantly several times after radio and radar contact had been lost, but that hasn't helped find the downed aircraft. Final verbal contact with the flight via radio was around 01:20. Last known radar location was around an hour later and the last known form of communication of any kind with the aircraft was a log-on request sent from the plane to Inmarsat's satellite communications server at around 08:20, 6 hours after the last known radar location. How far it travelled after that is still unknown, but it didn't respond to a status request from Inmarsat at 09:15, so it's presumed to have been downed within that 55 minute window. (More info here: Wiki) It's been almost 2 years now since that crash and nothing has been found, apart from some debris that's washed to shore on an island. Nobody knows how far that debris has travelled to get to that island. I'm sure that if a beacon had been deployed right before the plane hit the water, SAR would have had a better chance at finding it, at least within a couple of days or weeks. You are of course right that a balloon on the ocean surface won't be able to transmit very far, but it doesn't have to. As soon as the plane is presumed down, some sort of SAR will be deployed. If ships or other aircraft can pick up the signal as soon as they get within 3-500 miles of the beacon, they'll at least have something to go on, instead of just looking for visible wreckage. Hundreds of ships and planes will have passed within 3-500 miles of the crash site by now without knowing it. What's important about this system is that it's a stand-alone. It doesn't rely on the very electronics that are often the cause of a plane going missing in the first place, or at least aren't helping after the fact.
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Post by silverdragon on Dec 7, 2015 8:48:49 GMT
Firstly, May I make remembrance to the fact that if they had asked Rolls Royce, they have tracking software on all of their engines. If a problem exists in mid-air, they can roll out and be prepared for it when it lands. They have the ability to track aircraft this way, but have never actually used it.
They have offered to roll out a "Real time" tracking system for all aircraft in the air at all points in the same way... Tracking, just start looking for it where it last went off the "radar", or where it last sent a signal from, and if the Black Box is emitting a "Here I am" signal from it at all times with an emergency battery inside to keep it going for a week or so, it will be found eventually. Use of satellite communication is probably going to be the better idea on this... because of ground based black spots in other radio communication.
Going back to the idea of physical location beacon.
Air-bags.... They can deploy an emergency air-bag in a car in millionths of a second when it crashes, so getting a small inflatable buoy up and out of a panel on the roof of an aircraft is definitely possible. Same technology, if it senses a crash, its out of there?... give it a 30 second delay for the aircraft to stop moving (forwards that is... down is a different matter?..) Tying a few "shots" to the end of it and treating it as a large Crab-Pot?.. perhaps ask the guys off Deadliest Catch how they could do that eh?..
I would say fit the device internally but externally to the rest of the airframe, as in, not internally connected to anything but a power source and triggering device.
We can ALL afford a small tracking device to slip in or kids pockets to track our kids... A small tracking device with GPS is a small up-scale, I have no reason to suspect that this kind of tracking would be more expensive than a new i-phone, if all aircraft were mandatory required to carry one, less lost aircraft, always on, and you start looking for it when it STOPS transpondng but hasn't officially landed anywhere, or starts to transpond an emergency signal.
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Post by GTCGreg on Dec 7, 2015 14:41:44 GMT
"Your seat bottom cushion can be used as a flotation device". There you go, just equip all the butt cushions with small emergency location transmitters.
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Post by Cybermortis on Dec 7, 2015 17:26:13 GMT
Keep some things in mind;
The system needs to be capable of surviving an impact.
It needs to be entirely self-contained, meaning that while it might connect to an aircrafts systems to record flight data it should not require any external power or signal to deploy...which brings us too...
It needs to be a system that can be fitted to any commercial aircraft with little or no alteration or modifications needing to be made. Ideally it should also be a system that can be removed and replaced quickly and easily at airports, allowing units to checked to ensure they are still working.
It needs to be small, light and cheap in order to be a practical addition to existing fleets.
The system needs to pose no risk to an aircraft, especially if something activates it by accident. In this regard accidental deployment should be a minor annoyance both for the pilot in flight, and for the ground crew and owner on the ground.
The system needs to be capable of deploying regardless of the way the aircraft lands.
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Post by OziRiS on Dec 7, 2015 20:29:32 GMT
Keep some things in mind; The system needs to be capable of surviving an impact. It needs to be entirely self-contained, meaning that while it might connect to an aircrafts systems to record flight data it should not require any external power or signal to deploy...which brings us too... It needs to be a system that can be fitted to any commercial aircraft with little or no alteration or modifications needing to be made. Ideally it should also be a system that can be removed and replaced quickly and easily at airports, allowing units to checked to ensure they are still working. It needs to be small, light and cheap in order to be a practical addition to existing fleets. The system needs to pose no risk to an aircraft, especially if something activates it by accident. In this regard accidental deployment should be a minor annoyance both for the pilot in flight, and for the ground crew and owner on the ground. The system needs to be capable of deploying regardless of the way the aircraft lands. I think my "pod-on-the-butt" design qualifies on all counts
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Post by silverdragon on Dec 8, 2015 8:45:42 GMT
suggestions to add to the good ideas so far...
thinking that a small cylinder housing placed just short of the tail, or even part of the tail structure, and therefore out of way of engines with a li-ion rechargeable battery that breaks away from the onboard recharge circuit when deployed works well.
Thinking.... If this deployment holds an electronic device that blips an emergency signal, that signal can state the exact GPS lat and long of when it was deployed?... it needs be no more than that, because its not as if it will be needed to be collected, and that way, it can drift away and the rescue can start at the exact location of where the plane went down... closest to half a mile is enough if you know where to start looking... even better if it can be closest to the nearest 100 yds?.. you will start to see wreckage at that point?...
Thinking... If this is a Helium balloon, it can then be spotted from the air, or get enough hight to broadcast over mountains, again, it doesnt need to be tethered if its giving the exact location of the plane in its broadcast.
Multiple balloons can take care of what happens if one is lost or malfunctions. Make them deploy in the same way as air-bags, thus smaller and easier to store onboard. Small "Just enough" gas cartridge powered, that can be checked yearly.
Does it need to be tethered if it is GPS aware of where the accident started?..
If also there was tracking permanently on the aircraft by satellite link, that two signals and the flight path logged could triangulate the location...
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