Black Box

As a frequent flier, I take quite an interest in the machinery used to get me from place to place. I took a couple of flight lessons and visited the Boeing factory in Everett, Washington twice (the first time, years ago, they were just rolling out the 777-200. More recently, they were hard at work on the 787 "Dream Liner").

One fact stuck in my mind from the last tour: every airplane is flown by test pilots for several hundred hours, before it's delivered to the airline that ordered it. During the test flights, the pilots simulate turning each one of the 4 engines off, and finally all 4 - to see how the plane would handle it. Talk about a job from hell - purposefully trying to crash a jumbo jet.

That and some recent accidents (and morbid curiosity) prompted me to read about the Flight Recorder, aka "Black Box". Here are some facts that might interest you, about a the only device on an airplane that is completely useless to its occupants:

1. A black box is actually orange colored, so it'd be easier to find in a wreck.
   
   
2. There are actually 2 flight recorders on every airplane. One records the flight data from all the gauges (FDR) and one records conversations in the cockpit (CVR).
   
   
3. The recorders are placed in the tail of the aircraft, statistically the part of the plane that will survive most crashes (and to think I usually tell my travel agent to seat me up front).
   
   
4. The recorders have a locator beacon to aid in their retrieval.
   
   
5. The FDR records all the data points in the aircraft every 5 seconds, unless something goes wrong, and then it switches to 1 second or 0.2 second interval. It can hold up to 25 hours of data.
   
   
6. The voice flight recorder retains the last 2 hours of conversations, using a cyclic buffer.
   Which brings up the question: with today's storage capacity and minimization, you can literally record hundreds of hours of flight data and voice without losing anything. Why isn't the technology upgraded?
   

In my opinion, the whole flight recorder aspect may be a bit outdated. With available wi-fi and radio technologies, you could, conceivably, transmit all data to several ground stations (for redundancy), so no on-board recorder will be needed (think about it: some of the airlines already have onboard wi-fi. Data can be easily transmitted). That way, many more people and much better computers on the ground can monitor planes in real time, and alert whenever something goes out of whack, long time before the pilots notice a problem (pro-active, rather than reactive, approach).

It's hard to put a number on how many accidents were prevented and lives saved due to lessons learned from black boxes salvaged from past accidents. From a pure, scientific point of view, this looks like one of the single instances in human progress where learning from past mistakes actually prevents repeating them.

Read more about flight recorders here.

Consumer Rants: Continental

This post may single out Continental airlines, but is targeted at all airlines using code-sharing as an excuse to deny people of their hard-earned miles.

At the beginning of the month, I traveled to the UK on a Continental airlines flight operated by Virgin Atlantic. Since then, I have not been credited my miles (about 10k of them).

The Continental site provides an automatic way to add uncredited miles. I could still see my trip in my online account. I went through the form and got "an error occurred - please call the office in Houston". I called their office, waited on line for 7 minutes, and got a rep who spent 10 minutes trying to find my flight in her system. No matter what info I gave her, she claimed she has no way to confirm i actually flew on that flight. Finally, she told me to mail my receipt and boarding passes, if I ever want to see those miles. She blamed Virgin for the mishap.

Few things irritate me:

1. In this day and age, why mail stuff if you can email it (or fax it, if Continental doesn't have access to email)?
   
   
2. I haven't touched a paper ticket in years. I only use eTickets and printouts and other online means of checking in. Yet time and again I'm being asked for that little piece of paper called "boarding pass". Why have computers been inveneted? To allow people to trade in paper more easily???
   (And since I am in California, I'm mandated by law to add: "think of all the trees dying for those pieces of paper..." ).
   
   
3. Why do companies blame their code share partner for missing miles? I bought a ticket from Continental. They chose to fly me with Virgin - and now they refer me to Virgin to prove I was on the flight?
   This is the kind of shoddy behavior used by web sites that sell merchendise and then let you to fend on your own against an unknown 3rd party when the merchendise misbehaves. Where is the BBB when you need it?
   
   
4. Finally, and this is the most irritating point: Continental got paid for this flight. They charged my credit card before I set one foot on that plane. How can they ask for proof? Proof of what? The way I see it, I'm entitled to those miles the second I pay for the flight. Me being or not being on a plane has nothing to do with that benefit.

In summation, let me say this: Continental (or any other airline): if you can't find proof I was on a flight, please refund my money. You must have charged it by mistake. Oh, and please send my money back by mail.