[HN Gopher] The inventor of the black box was told to drop the idea
___________________________________________________________________
The inventor of the black box was told to drop the idea
Author : sohkamyung
Score : 200 points
Date : 2021-06-19 02:05 UTC (20 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (spectrum.ieee.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (spectrum.ieee.org)
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/pcGpz
| refurb wrote:
| It kind of makes sense. If you had a high stakes job (human life,
| say a surgeon) and your boss wanted to record your every action,
| what would you think?
|
| I think the FAA's approach of "we do accident investigations so
| we learn, not to blame" went pretty far in making the idea more
| acceptable.
| code_duck wrote:
| Good thing this idea didn't go down in flames. (Sorry).
|
| Looking back, almost every great idea I've had has received
| negative support from people around me, who either didn't
| understand it or had their own plans for me.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Inventor: this is my indestructible black box for recording
| aircraft crashes.
|
| Reviewer: drop it.
|
| Inventor: this is a safety feature that will allow us to iterate
| plane design and save thousands of lives in the future!
|
| Reviewer: drop it.
|
| Inventor: this is extremely important for the future of aviation!
|
| Reviewer: drop it.
|
| Inventor: I WILL NOT _storms off_
|
| Reviewer: I just meant...show that it won't break? Never mind.
| ineedasername wrote:
| _magnetized steel wire as the recording medium._
|
| I had no idea that was how recordings were (or at least could) be
| made at the time. Of course it makes sense-- early use of
| magnetic tape was something like nickel coated bronze, so there's
| no reason a wire couldn't also work.
|
| Just a bit of electronics history I wasn't aware of that I
| thought interesting.
| shultays wrote:
| Here is a video on them
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90ihiTwJPCc
| quintushoratius wrote:
| I think part of the reason for using wire was for fire
| proofing. The recording would be salvageable even after intense
| fires.
|
| Later recorders used plastic tape but also have a water vessel.
| As the water boils it keeps the interior from going above 100C
| - until it boils away. The recorders are rated for maybe 30-60
| minutes of direct exposure.
|
| Recent recorders use solid state storage and, still, water to
| keep the internal temperature lower.
| femto wrote:
| Reading Wikipedia, David Warren died in 2010, and his coffin was
| labelled "FLIGHT RECORDER INVENTOR DO NOT OPEN". Nice.
|
| https://www.wsj.com/media/072310pod05.jpg
| slipframe wrote:
| Well if this idea can't survive being dropped, it's not much good
| is it? Sorry...
|
| > _Interestingly, modern flight data recorders are required to
| have an underwater locator beacon that pulses once per second at
| 37.5 kilohertz for 30 days and is supposed to be detectable at
| depths of at least 14,000 feet (4,267 meters). But they don't
| have comparable beacons for crashes on land._
|
| After Japan Airlines Flight 123, that is shocking to me.
| na85 wrote:
| >But they don't have comparable beacons for crashes on land.
|
| Well, they do:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_position-indicating_...
|
| But the reason you need underwater beacons in particular is
| that the water absorbs RF signals, so you'll actually use
| acoustic beacons underwater. Such a device would be useless
| above the water since air is so much less dense.
| slipframe wrote:
| From what I understand in America, small airplanes are
| required to have ELTs/EPIRBs, but airliners are exempt. I
| don't know why that would be, maybe lobbying.
| FooHentai wrote:
| Possibly their size means they're remote trackable (e.g.
| radar) already by gov/military when over or near land. This
| may not be the case with small aircraft.
|
| Total guess, of course.
| [deleted]
| redis_mlc wrote:
| The black box has worked well for all in Common Law countries.
|
| In countries with French-style law, that might be different for
| pilots. (Essentially you're guilty until proven innocent, and
| they hire a retired judge with nothing better to do except to
| drag out the hearings (and fees) until they die.)
|
| However the scale has tipped recently in the US with a central
| pilot records database being created recently. So at every step
| of your career, you're recorded and tracked. If an employer
| doesn't like you, they can scribble whatever they want in your
| permanent government record now.
|
| So before a pilot candidate spends $200,000 on a college
| education and pilot training, they need to think about both
| losing their medical at any time, and what will happen if their
| airline decides to fire them and give them a hard time.
| [deleted]
| markdown wrote:
| > $200,000 on a college education and pilot training, they need
| to think about both losing their medical at any time
|
| In my country Loss of License insurance removes that as a risk
| for pilots.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| In the US there is loss of medical insurance (essentially
| disability insurance) available in most scenarios from
| several providers, provided somebody pays for it. Note
| there's always policy fine-print and limits.
|
| But there's no loss of certificate insurance product
| available. The FAA pads any complaint with "reckless", which
| is up to their sole opinion.
| p_l wrote:
| In Roman law you're also innocent until proven guilty - and the
| unwritten law in most countries is that prosecution doesn't get
| to access accident investigation materials and has to order
| their own experts every time.
| Proven wrote:
| I'm not surprised.
|
| The technically savvy HN readership is overwhelmingly against
| black-box designs.
| ajarmst wrote:
| There's an interesting aside in that neither a CVR nor a FDR
| would have been helpful in figuring out the cause of the Comet
| disasters. The way they did was brilliant.
| dukoid wrote:
| Now that the technology is so inexpensive, we need to have them
| in cars!
| FooHentai wrote:
| Already a thing and quite widespread deployment. Mandated in
| the US, Japan, and Korea for many years now:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_data_recorder
| nine_k wrote:
| Get a dashcam.
|
| I wonder how soon a car would be able to publish its metrics,
| like speed, motor rpm, data from ABS and brakes, etc via a
| protected Bluetooth channel, so that a dashcam or a phone could
| keep recording it, like the black box.
| jiofih wrote:
| Dashcams pointing outwards are not legal in the EU due to
| privacy laws.
| emilburzo wrote:
| Now?
|
| You can already get those metrics from the car's OBD2 port.
|
| There are even dongles which have Bluetooth so you can
| see/record the metrics on your phone, so it shouldn't take
| much to get them on a dashcam.
| valepape wrote:
| Just don't IoT it, please.
| Haga wrote:
| To late
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Well, ok. First you make it a crime for any authority to look
| at it for any reason that is not blameless safety
| investigations.
| rkachowski wrote:
| Tangental, but I wasn't aware of a ban on hobby radio activity
| during WW2 until I read this article. What would be the reasoning
| for that?
| jameshart wrote:
| Probably a mix of: reserving supply of electronic components to
| military use; eliminating a possible cover story for spies;
| emission control to deny enemy navigation cues; limiting
| vectors for accidental information disclosure; creating an
| atmosphere of 'We're all engaged in this all out struggle
| together'; wartime bureaucratic expansion and overreach; and
| just generally more important things going on.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I've watched all the episodes of Aviation Disasters. The device
| missing from cockpits is the _video_ recorder. Many
| investigations revolve around questions like what is the pilot
| looking at, what the instruments show, even who the heck is in
| the pilot 's seat. Video can confirm switch settings and
| instrument readouts (the voice recorder is also used to confirm
| if the warning horns sounded properly).
|
| Instead, a lot of effort goes into trying to reconstruct this.
|
| Just put a dang video camera in the cockpit.
|
| I've also, for decades, advocated a camera that records flight
| operations at an airport. Just stick a couple in the tower
| pointed at the runways. Note that in the Concorde disaster, there
| was no video of the take-off. They had to rely on eyewitness
| testimony, which is notoriously unreliable. The only video came
| later from some passenger in a car who happened to have a video
| cam at hand. That accidental video proved valuable. (It's a
| horrifying video.)
|
| I was surprised at all the vitriol opposition to pointing a
| camera at the runways. People confidently told me it would cost
| millions of dollars, and was completely infeasible. Jeez, anyone
| could buy a security camera that recorded on a loop for a few
| hundred. Every convenience store had them.
| ajarmst wrote:
| It would be less useful than you'd think. Pilots are trained to
| articulate what they are doing and generally follow very well-
| practiced procedures. Another pilot can quite accurately
| reproduce what a pilot is doing just from the transcript, and
| the warning horns and other indicators are quite expressive of
| other things. The audio is good enough to hear breakers
| opening. Anything a video camera could see out the window that
| would be relevant will be remarked upon by pilots.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| In the vast, vast majority of cases, yes. However, black
| boxes are only used in the minority where something has gone
| horribly wrong.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I've watched enough Aviation Disasters to know this isn't
| always good enough.
| gaucho32 wrote:
| Dude, every single mishap since airplanes became reliable was
| pilot error at the root. It's never not pilot error. The FAA is
| a jobs program, similar to the old TVA, and note that all
| mechanics and pilots are still unionized. Governments have
| ensured that there will be no meaningful innovation in air
| breathing aviation, hence the space race...go ABOVE the
| bureaucrats.
| the-dude wrote:
| Although I don't necessarily disagree with your arguments,
| using security cameras on the tower would probably give you
| very little : the distances are huge.
|
| Imagine the footage of the average shop robbery, which most of
| the time is already useless. And UFOs.
| WalterBright wrote:
| It'll tell you the positions, directions, and speeds of the
| traffic on the runways, which are a big deal.
| the-dude wrote:
| Don't they have ground radar for this?
| WalterBright wrote:
| Maybe they do now, at some airports. Radar is far, far
| more expensive than a dashcam set in the tower.
| josefx wrote:
| > Jeez, anyone could buy a security camera that recorded on a
| loop for a few hundred.
|
| It probably isn't that easy, at least for the runways. Remember
| that Uber crash where they tried to convince everyone that the
| cyclist was near impossible to see? The dash cam used to record
| that video was standard, but also completely unable to handle
| even a well lit road at night. Good cameras and the weather
| proofing they need out in the open (they should still work
| after a snow storm) will cost a lot more, probably not
| infeasible but still a decent amount of cash.
| dwild wrote:
| > the weather proofing they need out in the open
|
| He suggest to put one in the tower. There's no need to
| weather proof anything, or else poor controllers ;). In
| theory the tower see the runways well enough, or else the
| airport isn't well designed and the tower doesn't fill its
| own purpose.
|
| > The dash cam used to record that video was standard, but
| also completely unable to handle even a well lit road at
| night.
|
| Weren't we still able to see the cyclist? Weren't we able to
| boost the contrast to see her even better?
|
| Sorry for the sarcasm, but even the worst camera show more
| than no camera at all... You can't argue that seeing a
| cyclist badly is worse than not seeing that same cyclist at
| all.
|
| All it takes is a 100$ camera and you would get so much more
| evidence.
| unishark wrote:
| I have no doubt that it would cost millions. If it's important
| enough to do, it's important enough to spend extra on a
| (supposedly) reliable and secure system with some massive 24/7
| maintenance contract. Unlike convenience store cameras that can
| just use off-the-shelf products and still deter criminals by
| just being there even when broken.
| bruce343434 wrote:
| If I was a pilot I'd hate to be constantly surveilled by a
| camera, even if the footage is "never reviewed". In fact, it's
| got nothing to do with being a pilot.
| garaetjjte wrote:
| >even if the footage is "never reviewed"
|
| Why the scare quotes? It would be literally never reviewed
| unless incident occurs, as it would be on overwriting loop.
| gccs wrote:
| Don't buy a Tesla then. They have cameras pointing at you and
| recording while driving.
| bruce343434 wrote:
| I'm not gonna?
| bigbillheck wrote:
| > Don't buy a Tesla then
|
| Way ahead of you on that one.
| astrange wrote:
| So do taxis, and any other car with driver assistance
| (though those don't save the video, they just watch if your
| hands are on the wheel.)
| ericd wrote:
| That's opt-in, at least in the US, and for the moment.
| cj wrote:
| (Just curious) what features become unavailable when you
| opt out? Or in other words, why would anyone opt in?
| fakedang wrote:
| If I was a private pilot, sure (and I am one). If I am a
| commercial pilot ferrying hundreds of passengers or millions
| of dollars worth of cargo, I'm no different from a public
| transit employee (or a public employee for that matter), in
| which case I damn well have to put up with being surveilled
| on camera.
| dwild wrote:
| I can see the privacy issue, but your voice is already
| recorded. A camera wouldn't infringe that much more on your
| privacy...
| beebeepka wrote:
| Haha. Even public transport has had cameras for years.
| zeusk wrote:
| Couple of issues here; the first and foremost - recording
| people at their workplace. We can all argue how privacy is
| unreasonable in public but recording let alone pilots but
| anyone continuously at work will receive big pushback.
|
| Also video occupies much more data than most other streams of
| information stored on blackbox. This coupled with the fact that
| anything aviation related takes decades to get into widespread
| use and it was only quite recently that solid state storage
| became so dense and ubiquitous.
|
| Video surveillance at airports is getting more widespread, just
| search for SFO asiana.
| WalterBright wrote:
| It's the same issue with the audio recording. The solution is
| it's in a loop, and those recordings are almost never
| released.
|
| As for video, VHS quality is about 1Gb per hour. Meaning you
| can put 64 hours on an ordinary USB stick about the size of
| my thumbnail. Furthermore, video recording has nothing to do
| with flying the airplane, so there are no
| safety/certification issues. It doesn't even have to be in a
| crashproof box.
|
| I know that airports now have video surveillance, but those
| cameras are pointed mostly at the tarmac for security
| purposes, not at the runways for flight ops.
| WalterBright wrote:
| BTW, I can buy a dashcam for $100 that records HD in a loop
| and plugs into a cigarette lighter. I'm not buying there's
| any technical or cost issue with installing one in the
| cockpit. I will buy that the problems are all bureaucratic
| in nature.
|
| Just make a secure bracket for it, and a 12V feed.
| tomrod wrote:
| We record bus drivers, for goodness' sake. We should be able
| to record pilots.
|
| I agree that a hardened process relying on multiple SSD (that
| are then uploaded and wiped after landing at an airport)
| would be a good technical direction.
| glycine wrote:
| why we cannot just delete record when airplane take off next
| time? if airplane landing safely, we do not need record
| anymore.
| bregma wrote:
| "If the people in the cockpit aren't doing anything wrong,
| they have nothing to worry about".
| abraae wrote:
| A reasonable argument for stoners lighting up in the
| supermarket carpark.
|
| Not so for someone flying several tons of metal that will
| absolutely fuck up the lives of many people if they aren't
| paying full attention.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > recording let alone pilots but anyone continuously at work
| will receive big pushback
|
| I think we can say that when you have hundreds of people's
| lives in your hands you are accepting a higher level of
| oversight and invasion of privacy.
|
| The same reason some people in some careers have to go
| through deeply invasive background checks.
| Anarch157a wrote:
| This already happens. At least here in Brazil, offices have
| security cameras in pretty much every environment, except the
| restrooms.
|
| An office is a shared environment, usually not owned by the
| people who work there, that exists only for job related
| activities. Just like companies can monitor your company
| issued email, network traffic and cell phone, they can
| monitor your activities in the workspace.
|
| I'm a privacy advocate, I avoid Google and Facebook as much
| as I can, but even I understand the difference between
| private and professional life. One has an assumption of
| privacy, the other doesn't.
| algorias wrote:
| Note that this is not the case in all jurisdictions. In
| many European countries, the company cannot monitor
| employees' corporate emails without specific justification.
| jacquesm wrote:
| No, if you're a pilot in charge of a few hundred lives + the
| lives of a few hundred more in case you crash on the ground
| your 'privacy at work' is trumped by the responsibilities you
| have taken on. That's not a good argument. What _is_ a good
| argument is that people might behave different if they
| believed that there would be consequences for their actions,
| and this might either be a negative (if they don 't act for
| fear of repercussions) or a positive (if they don't perform
| acts that could endanger the aircraft knowing that these are
| recorded).
| willis936 wrote:
| There isn't an inch in Taipei that doesn't have a CCTV on it.
|
| In the US I see cameras at every gas station, donut shop,
| drug store, liquor store, and lab I go into. None of these
| places are as high stakes or high security as an airport.
| Foomf wrote:
| I wonder why there was such a difference in responses between the
| Australians and the British. Was it just a culture difference?
| martyvis wrote:
| But it was an interesting turnaround by the Aussies that they
| were the first country to mandate the flight data recorders.
| mongol wrote:
| The last sentences about uploading data to the cloud had not
| struck me before. It is such an obvious development, if not to
| replace so to complement. But perhaps there are challenges around
| it that are not obvious?
| goatinaboat wrote:
| _It is such an obvious development, if not to replace so to
| complement. But perhaps there are challenges around it that are
| not obvious?_
|
| You might be surprised how scant and expensive bandwidth
| becomes once you are out of sight of land
| wanderingstan wrote:
| Still, there are so many flights now that offer onboard Wifi,
| it's seems silly not to back up flight recorder data to the
| cloud wherever possible.
| nine_k wrote:
| A plane more often has access to an atmospheric cloud than to a
| computing cloud, especially when flying over an ocean. Maybe
| Starlink could offer reasonable connectivity, even if
| intermittent.
| astrange wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370_s.
| ..
| kken wrote:
| This inventor is probably joined by many others before him that
| had the same idea, were shrugged off and did not have the
| tenacity to follow up despite that. Another example for what is
| common wisdom: Execution is everything.
|
| The myth of the inventor-founder is something from the industrual
| age. Interesting how it still persists.
| inigojonesguy wrote:
| "Execution is everything" is always true after the fact. Good
| and bad ideas are treated with disdain because that is how
| people are. Until a random person gets profit from execution,
| then is praised for the profit, because people desire and envy
| profit.
|
| If there is a myth here, it is that it matters who executed it
| first. It's random.
| fighterpilot wrote:
| Why is it a myth? Whenever I read about the founding of a big
| name company there's very often a significant innovation that
| it's initially premised on.
|
| Disney - animated feature length film with sound, dogged vision
| of founder
|
| Post / Kelloggs - invention of breakfast cereal, invented by
| founder (Kellogg's invention stolen by Post)
|
| Carnegie steel - bridge prototype, highly risky and innovative
| endeavor
|
| Ford - division of labor
|
| Mars - caramel and nougat in chocolate, innovation over
| Hersheys' plain chocolate, invented by founder
|
| Google - pagerank, invented by founders
| redis_mlc wrote:
| More recent examples are:
|
| - Robinson Helicopters, the largest mfg. in the world by unit
| count
|
| - Dean Kamen, several medical devices plus the Segway
|
| - an endless number of Internet companies.
|
| Note that the Google founders couldn't write their own
| production-level software, so hired a python contractor.
|
| Also for those that aware, Tesla's patents were used to start
| Westinghouse.
| username90 wrote:
| Mass production and factories had already been a thing for
| almost a century when Ford started his factories. It is like
| saying that the new innovation "computers" was behind
| Facebooks success.
| nine_k wrote:
| No, the Ford's innovation is division of labor while
| producing a complex thing, a car. Instead of a team working
| on various operations, Ford's system introduced workers who
| each did a very simple operation, without having to change
| or readjust. The need for coordination between workers was
| largely removed, replaced by the conveyor, seriously
| improving production speed.
| PeterisP wrote:
| Division of labor while producing a complex thing was a
| concept well established and documented during the
| industrial revolution before Ford. E.g. Adam Smith had a
| lot to say exactly about "Instead of a team working on
| various operations, [...] introduced workers who each did
| a very simple operation, without having to change or
| readjust.", it's misleading to call it "Ford's system"
| because Ford applied it extensively, but he did not
| invent it and wasn't the first to use it. Conveyor lines
| also wasn't an invention of Ford - he applied them a lot
| on scale, but they were widely used in different
| industries long before he was born. He also wasn't the
| first to apply continuous assembly lines specifically to
| the production of cars, as far as I understand the
| founder of Oldsmobile had been doing high-volume series-
| production of cars with strong division of labor a couple
| years earlier, though eventually not as successful as
| Ford.
|
| He can and should be credited with applying these
| innovations at scale and ironing out various kinks in the
| process and popularizing these concepts, but it would be
| a lie to call it "Ford's innovation", all these things
| you mention were initially invented by others, although
| Ford did manage the practical implementation of all these
| innovations in combination unusually well.
| jacquesm wrote:
| No, that was pioneered by Ransom E. Olds. That doesn't
| stop Ford from repeating this at every opportunity but it
| isn't really true.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ransom_E._Olds
| fighterpilot wrote:
| Which car company was using division of labor before
| Ford?
| zaroth wrote:
| Olds-mobile, of course.
| [deleted]
| ggm wrote:
| Post and Kellog have joint tenancy in weird theories about
| breakfast cereal and masturbation. I wouldn't class Post as a
| thief in this space. Also grape nuts are fantastic (and that
| isn't a joke about nutting)
| bumbada wrote:
| This is not a myth, but History recording real facts that
| happened.
|
| Anyone can imagine a "flying car" or a "nuclear fusion
| reactor". It is a completely different thing having and putting
| the resources to work: the people, the effort, the money and
| the time to make something real.
|
| Someone just "having an idea" only works in science fiction,
| and even there you need to do the work of writing the book, or
| drawing the comic.
| kwdc wrote:
| Wow. History hasn't been kind. As is often the case around
| limited-mindset thinking.
|
| From TFA: "civil authorities said that "Dr Warren's instrument
| has little immediate direct use in civil aircraft." The Royal
| Australian Air Force likewise decided that "such a device is not
| required--the recorder would yield more expletives than
| explanations."
|
| Well. No. Multiple air crashes across the world relied on
| recordings as a key part of their investigation. Especially when
| a plane lands in the Hudson, just to name one example.
|
| This is very telling:
|
| "Most damning was the Federation of Air Pilots, which declared
| that the device would be like "a spy flying alongside--no plane
| would take off in Australia with Big Brother listening."
|
| History wasn't kind here either. Just try and take off in a jet
| from a commercial airliner without the various safety equipment
| installed. The insurance companies alone will try to eat you
| alive, let alone every other agency.
|
| There's definitely a repeating theme around safety equipment and
| authority/authority figures. The ridicule at the start is
| definitely a common starting point. Seat belts and air bags were
| both ridiculous inventions. Then they weren't. Then they became
| required.
|
| Quote from elsewhere and not necessarily about flight recorders:
| "It has been said that any new idea must pass through three
| stages. First, it is ridiculed; second, it is subject to
| argument: third, it is accepted. The safety idea has reached the
| final stage. It is accepted." -- Earl B. Morgan, journal of
| Safety Engineering, 1917
| accountLost wrote:
| First They Ignore You, Then They Laugh at You, Then They Attack
| You, Then You Win.
|
| "The statement evolved from a large family of sayings that
| originated in the nineteenth century. In 1918 a closely similar
| remark emerged in a speech by Nicholas Klein, a union
| representative. Gandhi discussed stages that a movement passes
| through in a collection of writings he published in 1921, but
| his words did not really match the target expression."
|
| https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/08/13/stages/
| belter wrote:
| "Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas
| are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats."
|
| Howard Aiken
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Fourth: in retrospect, it is seen as obvious :)
| [deleted]
| the-dude wrote:
| What about a black box for your car?
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| Are these the 'trust the experts' everyone was talking about
| during Covid?
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes. You can find the same kind of bs regarding safety belts in
| cars, ABS, airbags and so on. The part where I'm seeing a
| difference is when safety gear starts to actively interfere
| with operating the vehicle.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| It's kind of funny to see basically the same arguments being
| offered against video recording in this very thread on HN.
| linspace wrote:
| I guess one possible explanation is that having a black box in
| your plane is not useful to you, only for other people after
| you die. Pushing for the idea requires accepting you are going
| to screw up and some people will think that your job is
| preventing the airplane from crashing in the first place. It's
| obviously useful in the long term from a societal perspective,
| not from a short-term and individual point of view.
| codetrotter wrote:
| Even then I don't get why someone would object. But of course
| hindsight is 20/20 so that may be why. Having a black box in
| all aircraft would help me too, because other crashes are
| better understood. Then again I also do want my death to be
| maximally useful to others should I die, so that at least I
| don't die completely in vain. I don't want to live forever,
| but I don't want my life to end abruptly and outside of my
| control either, and I have plenty of things I want to do
| still before I leave. So that may also be why I don't
| understand that POV you suggested.
|
| Also, if I was a pilot, I would appreciate the fact that the
| black box can potentially help my friends and family get
| closure, because if the black box survives then my friends
| and family can learn what happened that caused the crash.
| seoaeu wrote:
| What they might learn is that the crash was your fault. It
| isn't clear that's the legacy you'd really want to have.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| And they might learn that it wasn't, thus clearing your
| name.
|
| In the aviation world, people aren't at fault. Processes
| are.
| stanpinte wrote:
| I think pilot must have known that the information in the
| back box would provide them heaps of data on how to prevent
| crashes, to their benefits. My guess is that is was not
| opposed by average pilots, but by people in power above or
| around or among pilots, whose power would be undercut by any
| new idea.
| tiku wrote:
| My idea was to make a lot of small transponders on the outside of
| a plane, that detach when in contact with seawater. And a few on
| long cables so that you could track that cable to the plane part.
| Those transponders could also have micro-sd cards with data on
| them.
| fatninja wrote:
| fire is also another scenario.
| austincheney wrote:
| Marc Andreessen describes his experiences seeking funding for
| Netscape as a disaster, particularly among the telecom giants of
| the age who had a potential stake in related businesses. Nobody
| thought the web or a web browser were worth investing in. Who
| would ever use those?
|
| The moral of these stories is that originality scares the shit of
| people. Good ideas are not immediately apparent.
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