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iPod: The New Black Box

Thursday, February 22nd, 2007 at 8:15 AM - by

Apple's iPod has found its way into the cockpit and is about to become a flight data recorder (FDR), more commonly known as "black box." Flight reports that light aircraft maker LoPresti SpeedMerchants is adding the ability to use an iPod as a flight data recorder to its Fury piston aircraft.


The first airplane with an iPod flight recorder.

The airplane will include an iPod dock connector, and will be able to send data to the iPod for storage. Although it's not clear yet exactly what data will be recorded, typically that includes system monitoring information and data for post-flight analysis.

LoPresti describes its iPod FDR as "the first truly portable, personal flight recorder with a huge recording capacity."

If the iPod as flight recorder proves successful, it may become a standard feature in other aircraft as well.

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Wings said:

member since 30 Mar 2004 with 89 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Thu Feb 22, 2007 10:18 am

The usual black box is a sturdy thing, able to survive some pretty serious impacts. And we've seen how the iPod (one, anyway) can be tossed out of a car and run over a couple of times and still make music, but .... a plane crash? Surely they will put this inside of a heavy steel frame, but they didn't say.

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geoduck said:

member since 30 Dec 2003 with 1922 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Thu Feb 22, 2007 10:32 am

I'm not worried about crash survivability so much as fire. They will need a good fireproof something to keep it in.

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Biff said:

member since 08 Apr 2004 with 1479 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Thu Feb 22, 2007 11:55 am

I sure hope its a solid state iPod! Not sure if a HDD would appreciate a plane crash in the middle of a read or write operation.

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Bosco said:

member since 03 Jun 2002 with 1002 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Thu Feb 22, 2007 1:01 pm

Aren't black boxes usually orange? Does Apple even make an Orange iPod? Would anyone actually buy one?

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A guest said: (hide)

Thu Feb 22, 2007 2:20 pm

Apple does make an orange iPod - the orange shuffle!

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vasic said:

member since 09 Aug 2005 with 279 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Thu Feb 22, 2007 2:46 pm

There is a difference between a real 'Black Box' (the orange container with voice and flight data recorder) and this initiative. The real thing is a requirement for commercial airliners. The law specifies where it is to be installed, how it is supposed to work, etc. For general aviation, it is not required. This manufacturer has an excellent and original idea. Since many pilots have iPods and are plugging them into their intercom systems, why not take advantage of the fact that they are in fact disk drives and make them useful. These days, most modern general aviation aircraft produce digital flight data (pito-static, engine, etc). It doesn't take a lot of engineering to build an interface that will collect this data, convert it into meaningful stream and store it on an iPod in real time. Flash-based iPods can sustain very high G-forces (i.e. forces of impact). There is a great chance of an iPod surviving a crash. If a pilot already has one, it costs next to nothing to hook it up to this interface. It dosn't have to be housed in a steel rugged indestructible box; small planes fly slower than airliners; have smaller size and weight than airliners; therefore, impact forces are generally smaller. Retrieving data from such an iPod could help tremendously in determining if anything went wrong with the actual aircraft. If this is a minor expense for aircraft manufacturers, I'd say great! I'm sure kit builders will be the first to jump onto this idea.

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A guest said: (hide)

Thu Feb 22, 2007 4:40 pm

Clearly this is not meant as a substitute for the "black box," but a convenient way to store information for those planes that DON'T crash.

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jbelkin said:

member since 23 Jul 2003 with 20 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Thu Feb 22, 2007 9:45 pm

Sounds like the perfect next better than waterproof ipod accessory ...

WILL SURVIVE 6 G's or 6 YEAR OLD KID

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iJack said:

member since 13 Jun 2001 with 313 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Fri Feb 23, 2007 12:39 am

Now if we could only persuade SJ to get into to flight insturments and avionics for real. I terms of a UI (actually, many different UIs), most General Aviation instrument panels are decades behind cars, have an awful mix of analog and digital, and take just too much time away from actually piloting the aircraft.

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