[LINK] Flash drives in the sea?

[Fernando Cassia]

On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 4:15 PM, Scott Howard <scott at doc.net.au> wrote:
> At the end of the day, the event that triggered this came down to a crew
> misinterpreting an alarm. This isn't a fault with the aircraft,

Well, that´s up to discussion, having a single alarm for two purposes
seems like a design deffect for me.

> fix wasn't to fix a problem, it was to make the exact problem more obvious
> in case the flight crew misinterpreted the alarm.
> The 3 years (or 9 years, depending on where you start counting from) has now
> expired and there hasn't been another incidence of this, so...

I wonder if all the planes world-wide have been updated or just the
ones under FAA (US) jurisdiction.

In any case, back to topic, having an onboard system that gets GPS
positioning data and relays such position data over inmarsat
low-bitrate data link is doable going forward for trans-oceanic
flights (it´d be overkill for domestic flights I assume),
IF industry agrees on the cost and implementation details.

Hughes 9201
http://www.hughes.com/technologies/mobilesat-systems/mobile-satellite-terminals/hughes-9201-bgan-inmarsat-terminal
…

I saw these up close being used by the CNN cew. The electronics in
these are the size of a large tablet pc and self-contained... I´m sure
the military have designed ways to embed such kind of sat uplink in
fuselages... https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BfjltHqCUAEB4a_.jpg

Key being ¨Cost-effective “always-on” access—_only charged for data
sent and received_¨

GPS positioning data is just a few bytes per each read like...
$GPRMC,081836,A,3751.65,S,14507.36,E,000.0,360.0,130998,011.3,E*62

66 characters every 5 mins... 792 bytes per hour

Plus, it could be turned on only during long flights over areas
without radar coverage, ie trans-oceanic flights...

Just a thought...
FC
PS: I´m just thinking aloud, daydreaming, I´m not saying this will
happen, probably never will. But wouldn´t it be nice? ;)