[LINK] Flash drives in the sea?

[Tom Worthington]

On 29/04/14 20:42, Stephen Loosley wrote:

> ... Airlines Flight 370 ... Tony Abbott, calls “probably the most difficult search in human
> history,” ...

The searchers were mostly sitting in air-conditioned comfort, so it is 
not quite the same test of human endurance as Bernard O'Reilly's solo 
trek through the rugged McPherson Range in Queensland, to find aircraft 
VH-UHH Brisbane: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_O%27Reilly_%28author%29

Also the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and Royal Australian Navy 
(RAN) found and rescued Tony Bullimore and Therry Dubois from the 
Southern Ocean in 1997 (my job was to do the web pages about the rescue, 
most of which seem to have been deleted): 
http://www.defence.gov.au/media/1997/01697.html

> When so much is connected to the Internet, why is the aerospace
> industry using technology that predates fax machines to look for
> flash drives in the sea? ...

Automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) provides the position 
of airliners in populated areas: 
http://blog.tomw.net.au/2008/07/improved-air-traffic-control-with.html

Outside the area covered by ADS-B, crew will report the aircraft's 
position by radio. Airliners also carry radio beacons to be activated 
after a crash.

Programming the aircraft satellite communications to transmit periodic 
position reports may help post-accident investigation, but it is not 
going to assist those on board and may pose a risk to the aircraft.

The ANU and Australian Computer Society run a course in "Systems and 
Software Safety" (COMP8180), with staff from the the High Integrity 
Systems Engineering group, University of York, to teach how to build 
such systems: http://programsandcourses.anu.edu.au/course/COMP8180


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
The Higher Education Whisperer http://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/
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Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science,
Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/