La France souhaite remplacer les boîtes noires par un suivi satellitaire

Flight Data Recorders Could Go Online

Mobile satellite operator Iridium is here to promote its solution to the problems highlighted by last year’s Air France flight 447 accident over the Atlantic.
All 228 passengers and crew perished when the Airbus A330-200 crashed, and the loss of the flight data recorder deprived investigators of information they could have used to pinpoint the disaster’s cause.
General and corporate operators use Iridium’s aeronautical voice and low-rate data services widely, and now the Virginia-based company is proposing that its globally available links could be used for routine, regular downloads of FDR information. The continuous stream of data would be triggered automatically by an abnormal event such as loss of cabin pressure or a sudden descent.
Iridium has worked with Canadian data link specialist AeroMechanical Services to demonstrate the continuous download of FDR information, using AMS’ Automated Flight Information Reporting System (AFIRS). The AFIRS’s FlyhtStream operating mode could be used together with Iridium’s 2KB/sec. air-ground data link service to deliver system information to airline managers and dispatchers, aircraft and engine manufacturers, air traffic control and search-and-rescue authorities.
The capability has been demonstrated in trials over the Atlantic, according to Dan Mercer, Iridium’s general manager for EMEA and Russia. “AFIRS and an Iridium terminal were fitted to a pair of Airbus A320s and a Boeing 757 belonging to one airline, and to a 767 belonging to another,” he says. “The test team judged that the streamed data would have been sufficient for a successful investigation in the event of an accident.”
Iridium is also developing its aeronautical service to broaden its appeal to the airlines. Hitherto the company’s ability to address airline passenger connectivity needs has been constrained by its modest data throughput. Now Florida-based LiveTV is developing a new airborne antenna capable of supporting three voice channels and up to 128KB/sec of always-on IP data over Iridium.
LiveTV displayed a prototype earlier this year, saying that it was the first in a range of products for air transport and other aviation sectors. Supplemental type certification flight trials, expected to be carried out with LiveTV parent company JetBlue, are set for the fourth quarter of this year, with commercial availability expected to follow early in 2011