WEBVTT - How Black Boxes Work 0:00:00.920 --> 0:00:04.080 Welcome to you stuff you should know from house stuff 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:12.400 Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:16.360 Josh Clark and they're sitting by me. Is Chuck Bryant 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:23.200 across from you and Jerry Rowland beside us. Here we are, Yeah, 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:26.920 this is stuff. Hey, and this is a fan request 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:32.920 by one of our younger fans. Yeah. When Cormack ron Dalzo, 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:36.120 it's right, our buddy, Joe's son and wife Cat, they 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:40.680 all listen as a family and it's adorable. They shout 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:44.040 at their stereo as a family. Yeah, apparently Cat shouted 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:47.080 at the stereo when you didn't remember thirteen year old 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:51.159 girls doing finger spelling sign language, Joe said. Kat was like, 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:53.760 how can he not have known this? That's all we did. 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:58.680 It wasn't around Tolito. Yeah, and you know what, Emily 0:00:58.720 --> 0:01:00.440 didn't know about it either, and she was in Ohio, 0:01:00.480 --> 0:01:04.760 so maybe it's everywhere but Ohio, Ohio. Colon left behind 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:09.360 as usual. It's pretty funny. But yeah, Cormack suggested that 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:12.760 we do an episode on black box flight recorders, and 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:15.880 that's what we're doing. Yeah, So Chuck, if you'll indulge 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:19.160 me before we get started. Um, I don't know if 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:22.120 you remember, but a couple of years ago a fan 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:26.160 sent in some day planners for us UM that were 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:28.800 like year long day planners, the the ones made out 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:31.360 of old library books. Yeah, and like um and they 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:36.520 had like h like de coupage like clicker stuff on 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:40.440 the on the cover. They were great. Perfect. Can't find 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:44.520 anything even remotely that good anywhere I've been looking for 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:48.000 a while. So, dear listener, if you're still out there 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:50.400 and you were listening UM, get in touch with us, 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:52.560 because I would love to buy those from you every year. 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:55.240 Oh yeah, you like those? Oh they were great? Yeah? Yeah, 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:58.160 you mean went crazy for it. Yeah, So if you 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:02.680 are that person, get in touch with us. Yeah. Stuff 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:05.760 podcast at Discovery dot com and put in the subject 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:10.840 line I'm the person Josh is looking for our day planners. 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:15.880 Uh okay, thank you, Chuck. So we're talking black boxes, 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:18.440 that's right, it's pretty interesting. I thought, Yeah, we should 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:21.000 probably put to rest the inane question of if they 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:26.040 can make something like a black box that can survive 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:28.400 an airplane car crash, why don't you just make the 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:31.200 whole airplane out of a black box material? And the 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:34.919 answer is because it wouldn't fly. Simple as that. Yeah, 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:37.120 so I'm glad we got that out of the way. Yeah, 0:02:37.160 --> 0:02:39.280 and they're also we should go ahead and say right 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:42.880 up front, they're not black. Uh. They're generally like bright 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:45.799 orange with like reflective tape and things, because you want 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:48.200 to be able to find it. Yeah, amongst the rubble 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:51.480 as of the I think the sixties or seventies, there 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:53.519 became a mandate where you had to paint them bright 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:55.720 orange so you could find them. But they think that 0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:59.239 they were called black boxes originally because either the original 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:02.600 ones were blacky or because it was kind of a 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:06.960 grim moniker because the boxes will become charred in the 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:11.240 wreckage and turn black. Yeah. I saw another explanation to that, 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:13.320 I don't think holds water. That they were initially like 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:17.239 round and red, and when they first debuted it, someone 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:19.280 in the room said, oh, what a nice black box, 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:22.919 as a smarmie thing to say, I guess about something 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:24.880 that's round and red. I don't know if that holds 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:28.040 water though. Yeah. It's weird all around. And apparently in 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:30.840 the aviation industry they don't call them black boxes anyway. 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:33.239 That's like something for the news media and jerks like us, 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:38.560 they probably call them crash survivalbal memory units. I think 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:40.320 what they call them is either one of the two 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:45.280 things that are either a flight data recorder or a 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:51.240 voice box. Well, there's a there's a lot of um. Yeah, 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:54.640 it's not that hard. But because of the media, and 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:58.000 in part because of this article, uh, it's very unclear 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:02.800 that black boxes are different things. Yeah, there's two different 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:05.480 We'll get into it, but there's really two different kinds. 0:04:05.480 --> 0:04:07.600 And what you would think of as a black box 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:12.520 is actually a group of components the system that yeah, 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:17.320 that formed this system that's meant to record the flight 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:22.440 data and the cockpit um sounds, which is the discussion 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:25.240 and the beeps and the pings and all that of 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:30.560 every single flight that goes into the air, commercial flight yeah, um, 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:33.200 in order, and then it is housed in a way 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:36.960 that it will survive even a horrible plane crash. It's 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:39.560 frequently the only survivor of a plane crash. Yeah. And 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:41.160 we'll get to the testing of these, which I thought 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:43.599 was kind of the coolest part. Yeah, I thought so too. 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:46.000 And the whole point is, of course, is to get 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:48.720 all the data to figure out what happened in a 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:53.640 plane crash, what happened because very frequently that it's not. Again, 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:57.120 if it's the sole survivor, then there's no one there 0:04:57.160 --> 0:05:00.200 to say, oh, well there's fire. There there's fire. It's 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:02.400 somebody lit a fire in the cabin and and the 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:04.840 whole the plain blue wall. Yeah, but you could hit 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:07.800 play and the pilot's going someone lit a fire in 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:10.880 the cabin, and there you have it. But it's a 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:15.320 little more complicated than that. Uh and goes back to uh. 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:18.880 In the nineteen forties there was a Finish aviation engineer 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:26.480 named V. A. Ho which doesn't sound finish umigration and 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:30.640 he did some of the first um flight recording was 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:33.280 something called the Mata Harre for World War two planes 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:35.839 test flights basically, but I think it was only like 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:40.040 instrument readings at the time. It wasn't recording uh uh 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:43.600 any voices like cockpit recording. Well, supposedly the Right Brothers 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:47.679 had some sort of recording device to record the propeller rotation. 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:50.560 That's pretty cool. Yeah, it's like there's been flight data 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:53.400 ever since there's been flight that's awesome. I found that 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:56.200 an Australian named David Warren was the one who really 0:05:56.240 --> 0:05:58.560 came up with the black box recorder. Yeah, he's the 0:05:58.560 --> 0:06:03.000 one that brought the voices into it, the actual audio recording. Okay, Yeah, 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:06.440 he was He was a member of a crash investigation 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:09.360 for a mysterious plane crash, and he thought it would 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:11.360 be really good if we had like a recording of 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:13.919 what was going on at the time. So he developed them. Yeah, 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:16.200 he's like that, you couldn't be too hard. And that 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:20.000 was the fifties, I believe, and they became widespread and 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:23.440 mandated in the sixties in Australia. It was the first 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:27.760 country and I guess even continent to make the mandatory. 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:33.760 So go uh Ozzy Yazzy Azzi so um. Initially the 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:39.359 black box recorders were UM recording on magnetic tape, and 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:42.120 then they moved in the strangely enough, in the late 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:46.760 nineties early two thousands. It wasn't until UM two eight 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:51.200 that they fully switched. Yeah that the f A mandated 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:53.640 in two thous five. There was a list of proposed 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:56.160 rules and one of them was, let's get rid of 0:06:56.200 --> 0:07:00.479 magnetic recorders, which no one uses anymore. That's two thousand 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:03.799 five after all, and go to solid state digital record 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:08.479 yeah right, Uh, no cassettes even UM and uh they 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:11.000 the f A thought about it, and thought about and 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:13.320 thought about and finally said, okay, fine, we'll do that. 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:16.640 One of the big reasons why it was with magnetic 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:19.480 tapes you could just record the last half hour of 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:23.520 a cockpit conversation. Yeah, it would. It would rerecord over 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:27.720 itself every thirty minutes, which you know probably that's all 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:29.920 you need. Yeah, you want to hope that your plane 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:33.720 doesn't take thirty minutes to go down. Um. But the 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:39.000 the the big superiority that solid state has over that 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:44.240 is that the recording time is far greater, the recording 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:49.640 media is smaller, more durable if you were moving parts, yeah, 0:07:49.800 --> 0:07:52.600 and so it can't break down as easily. And if 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:56.480 one part breaks, you can still take the solid state 0:07:56.560 --> 0:08:00.400 memory sticks and reconfigure them and get the eat off 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:03.280 of them. Still. Yeah. They cost between ten and fifteen 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:09.000 grand each and are usually um comes straight from the manufacturer, 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:13.080 like they work with the airline manufact airplane manufacturers themselves 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:16.320 to like preinstall them on these planes. Right. Yeah, So 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:19.000 you have a black box manufacturer who sells them to 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:22.800 the airlines, who are the airplane manufacturers who sell the 0:08:22.840 --> 0:08:26.880 airplanes to the airlines with the black boxes are installed. 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:29.480 It's like a part of the plane. That's right. Um, 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:33.400 so we should probably explain this now it's been long enough. 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:37.560 A black box can be one of two things, well, 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:40.240 one of three things really. Um. It can be the 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:44.200 flight data recorder, or it can be the cockpit voice recorder, 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:47.640 that's right, or it can be the crash survival baluh 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:52.440 memory unit. Black box refers to all three of those. Yeah, 0:08:52.720 --> 0:08:55.400 the important thing, the only thing that really needs to 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:59.040 survive the crash is the crash survival of memory. That's 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:03.040 where the data is it and housed and um that's 0:09:03.080 --> 0:09:06.640 the one that's super super beefed up to survive like 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:10.640 a nuclear war. Basically, so on any flight, on any 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:14.360 commercial flight, you have hundreds, if not thousands of sensors 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:18.920 going on at all times, and they are measuring things 0:09:19.040 --> 0:09:27.000 like airspeed, altitude, UH, cabin pressure, cabin temperature, UM, wing 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:31.959 trim everything, What are your flaps doing? Yaw? Yeah, you 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:35.000 don't just guess it, yaw, you gotta measure it right, right, 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:37.200 And so all of this information is coming into the 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:41.520 flight computer and plugged into the flight computer is uh. Well, 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:46.360 basically it's like an upstream passive eavesdropping units called the 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:50.319 Flight Data Acquisition Unit, and it takes all of this UM. 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:53.440 That's up front, right, that's up front with the pilots UM, 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:55.560 and it takes all of this incoming information and it 0:09:55.600 --> 0:09:58.079 records it. So not only is the are the pilots 0:09:58.559 --> 0:10:02.679 and the the ground control getting all this information, but 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:06.240 it's being recorded as well, UM and it's being routed 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:09.560 to the recorders through the Flight Data Acquisition Unit. Right. 0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:13.079 So also up front in the cockpit you're gonna have 0:10:13.480 --> 0:10:16.200 at least four microphones and in some newer planes also 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:19.960 video cameras. Yeah, that's the newest, the latest, crazy, right, 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:22.319 which you can't do that on magnetic tape, you know 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:24.320 what I'm saying. Yeah, they have to start drinking vodka 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:29.240 instead of like brown liquors. What do you mean the pilots, 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:31.679 you know, like it's water. I'm just having some h 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:37.880 dwoh not not the Great Goose or Yeah, I'm joking. Okay, 0:10:38.040 --> 0:10:39.679 all the pilots have been known to drink here and 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:41.400 there and they get in trouble. Yeah, they should get 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:44.600 in big trouble for you're the d D. Okay, if 0:10:44.600 --> 0:10:46.959 you're an airline pilot, there's no way around it. The 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:50.960 only shouldn't do is drink and do drugs. So um, 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:53.800 up there to eaves drop on the pilots, and not 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:56.320 just the pilots, but also all the sounds going on 0:10:56.360 --> 0:11:00.520 in the cockpit. Are these microphones and their recording everything 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:03.600 through the cockpit voice recorder? Yeah, and you talked about 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:06.160 the sounds, that's a big deal. Like not only do 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:09.360 you want to hear Captain Jim say, holy crap, our 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:13.320 wing is on fire, but they want to hear thirty 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:16.160 seconds before that if they hear just some weird noise. 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:18.920 And they're trained to pick up all that ambiance sound 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:22.040 and experts or trained too to listen out for things 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:24.480 that you would probably never notice. It's just a regular dude, 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:26.360 right exactly. And they can sit there and hear a 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:28.640 ping or a thud or a knock or a combination 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:30.880 of those things and be like, oh, I know what happened. 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:35.240 Somebody smoked in the laboratory and while they were on 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:38.839 their cell phone is loaded. Um, so you've got again, 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:42.120 you've got the cockpit voice recorder, you've got the flight 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:45.640 data recorder, and all of that info going out to 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:48.640 those two guys is going through the flight data Acquisition unit. 0:11:48.960 --> 0:11:51.080 And it's sending the info all the way to the 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:53.920 back of the plane, where the cockpit voice recorder and 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:56.520 the flight data recorder are located. And why is it 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:59.600 located in the back, because the front of the plane 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:03.000 takes up most of the force of the impact, and 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:06.200 it's far likelier that something placed at the rear of 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:09.560 the plane, specifically like the tail cone or the aft 0:12:09.640 --> 0:12:13.560 galley ceiling or something way in the back is going 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:17.160 to be likelier to survive because the rest gets mushed. Yeah, 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:20.760 we talked about that in our Surviving a Plane Crash episode. 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:23.280 And while they won't come out and say it out right, 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:25.080 it is a little bit safer in the back of 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:29.240 an airplane because you usually go nose down, and by 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:31.720 all accounts, if you drive a plane into a mountain, 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:35.439 captain and the co pilot are going to suffer the 0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:39.439 worst of it. Maybe if you're in the back bathroom 0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:42.600 having your cigarette, you're shaving like on airplane, you might 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:47.079 have a chance to survive, like cutting themselves. Uh and 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:49.760 speaking of mountains, chuck, this is good at places I 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:52.240 need to put it. There's some something called plane Crash 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:57.040 info dot com slash last words, and there's a lot 0:12:57.120 --> 0:12:59.000 of It's not just this site. There's a lot of 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:04.040 sites that have UM recordings from black boxes from like 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:07.600 the last seconds or whatever. And this site also has 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:09.880 just like transcriptions of the last couple of sentences, and 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:15.520 one of them was mountains the last thing. But then 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:18.160 there's been there's other ones to like, um Ma, I 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:21.200 love you was one the last words of one pilot. 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:25.560 Another one was Pete sorry, so I get somebody screwed up. 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:30.400 Another one was hang on, what the hell is this? Yeah, 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:32.679 and then other ones seem like they don't realize what's 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:34.760 about to happen. This isn't as bad as I thought 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:38.520 it would be, right, Yeah, yeah, but it's pretty interesting stuff. 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:42.000 Some of it's pretty grim. Some of it's super sad. Yeah, 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:44.680 it's like not an uplifting thing. Start on read on 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:47.320 a Friday afternoon. Oh no, it's not uplifting, but it's 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:50.400 it's definitely interesting. Yeah. I would not recommend reading that 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:53.560 before you take a flight. No. As a matter of fact, 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:57.000 Umi was traveling UM recently while I was researching this, 0:13:57.080 --> 0:13:58.840 and I made you send it to I was like, 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:01.240 I can't send her this. He's gotta fly back here. 0:14:01.600 --> 0:14:05.959 That's awful. UM. Alright, so we talked, Uh, let's go 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:08.560 ahead and talk about the flight the flight data recorder. UM. 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:13.080 You mentioned that they are all kinds of um of 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:16.160 data being recorded, like up to seven hundred types of 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:19.880 data can be recorded. UM. Like they can tell when 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:22.520 you just turn a switch on, that's like it's logged. 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:25.760 All of a sudden, captain turned on, even interior cabin 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:29.000 light switch, you know, that's all recorded. And UM. The 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:34.400 f a A they require pre two thousand two planes 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:37.320 to have a minimum of eleven and twenty parameters. If 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:40.200 it was built after two thousand to um at least 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:43.440 eight parameters, right, I don't see why they just don't 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:47.600 log at all if they can. Well, apparently like that 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:51.200 that rule that forced up to eight parameters be recorded 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:54.480 like cost the airline industry like three million bucks or something. 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:57.240 And that's the reason they're notoriously tight. So that's why 0:14:57.360 --> 0:15:00.320 they keep fighting it. And it's the NTSB that's say like, 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:03.160 let's push this along. It's two thousand five, we need 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:06.560 to stop using magnetic reel reel and the f a 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:08.600 A is like, I don't know, Well, the f A 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:12.920 is being pushed around by the airline industry well scary enough. Um, 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:14.560 I guess it's a good time to mention this. There 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:17.400 was something called the Safe Act Safe A v S 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:21.800 Asian and Flight Enhancement Act, and it's been up twice 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:25.880 and has not passed this legislation either time. And all 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:30.000 they're trying to do is provide a second recorder and 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:33.120 one of them should be deployable in the rear, which 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:36.200 makes sense, like if the plane hits an impact, this 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:39.440 thing pops off the back of the plane altogether and 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:46.720 a little clost like. I guess so because because they said, uh, 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:50.600 the f a A has a long history of delaying uh, 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:53.800 much needed upgrades in this equipment, and I guess it's 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:57.160 because the price or the airplane lobby. Yeah. When you 0:15:57.240 --> 0:16:01.520 when your federal agency is actually like a safeguard to 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:05.320 protect the finances of the industry, is regulating, that's not good. No, 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:10.480 it's not. I can't everybody just do things right. I know, 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:13.960 it's frustrating, and money is typically at the root of 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:17.200 it all, you know, it always is. Yeah, all right, 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:20.040 So we talked a little bit about the testing. I 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:21.520 guess we should just talk about what these things are 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:25.520 built out of, why they survive that the CSMU back 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:30.800 in Roswell in New Mexico. No, but there are three 0:16:30.920 --> 0:16:34.480 layers of materials to keep these things safe. Um, you 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:37.360 got your aluminum housing on the outside of it, and 0:16:37.400 --> 0:16:41.360 it holds all your memory cards. No, the aluminum is inside. 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:44.760 Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, that makes sense. It's 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:46.440 the weakest link, you know what I mean, it's on 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:50.440 the inside surrounding it's the last stand of protection. I guess, right, 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:52.600 that is like you said, it's holding the memory cards, 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:55.960 which are the one thing you really want to survive, 0:16:56.120 --> 0:17:01.120 the only thing. And this is right right, Yeah, I 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:03.440 guess it's a good point. And this is the crash 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:06.679 survivable memory Unit, which is actually a part of the 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:11.400 flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder. But it's 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:17.440 also the separate It's kind of like the Holy see no, 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:21.240 the Holy of Holies, the temple within the Temple of Jerusalem. Yeah, 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:23.320 like everything else will get mangled and it doesn't matter. 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:26.120 But all you needed, like you said, are those memory cards. Right, Okay, 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:28.639 So so go ahead. There's an aluminum housing around the 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:30.919 memory card, right, and then around that you have it 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:34.879 insulated with a dry silica one inch of it and 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:37.640 that is because a lot of times some planes crash 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:40.040 they catch on fire. Yeah, you want to retard fire. 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:43.960 Put a niche of silicus stuff around this, around whatever 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:46.600 you want, your hand, your head, sure, just do it. 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:49.399 You won't get h And then around that is your 0:17:49.400 --> 0:17:52.360 outer shell. And it's either stainless steel or titanium. It's 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:55.600 about a quarter inch thick. And that's like you know 0:17:55.640 --> 0:17:59.520 that you're bomb casing and all of that is why 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:01.520 you can't bill a plane out of all this. It 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:05.000 would be too heavy. And so this this one to 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:10.000 three punch of a crash revivable memory unit. Um, it's 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:13.600 a cylinder. Did you say that? I thought it was implicit. 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:17.320 It's just so imagine like a steel box. And you 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:19.720 can also go onto how stuff works and type in um, 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:24.040 how black boxes working. It'll bring up images. But imagine 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:26.359 like a steel box that forms like an L on 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:30.120 its back right, so the foot is sticking upward into 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:33.480 the air. And then on the part that's along the 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:36.760 ground now of the L is it's cylinder that's coming up. 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:40.000 Looks like it's it's holding some oil or something like. 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:42.919 That's an oil cylinder. It's like a fat squat barrel. 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:49.120 Then Attached to that is this little tube another cylinder 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:52.760 but longer and shorter, that serves as the handle for 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:56.600 the whole unit. But it's also a beacon. Yeah, and 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:59.600 that's super important. Um And actually we'll get into that. 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:03.440 But you've got to find these things, you know. It 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:05.560 does no good if it's hidden behind a tree or 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:08.520 at the bottom of the ocean. They like to hide, 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:11.240 they do. So we talked about some of the testing 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:15.160 that these things go through, and it's pretty awesome. Um. 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:20.359 They do one, two, three, four, five, six tests, the 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:23.200 first of which is just a basic crash impact. They 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:26.120 shoot it out of an air cannon at thirty four 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:31.480 hundred g s into an aluminum honeycomb and it smashes 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:34.879 it with a force equal to times its own weight. 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:37.159 It's just like, I want to see this thing in 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:40.600 super SlowMo basically, which not only does this simulate the 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:46.160 impact of a major plane crash, it actually probably overstates 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:49.840 the force. I think they overstate everything, you know, and 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:52.200 these things survived to say, okay, good, all right, let's 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:54.000 take it on to the next test, and the flight 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:57.560 data recorders like wait what yeah, exactly, and they take 0:19:57.600 --> 0:19:59.600 it onto the pin drop, which I think it's funny 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:02.200 that they the pin drop has nothing to do with it. Sound, 0:20:02.320 --> 0:20:06.200 it's like engineering humor. Yeah. They take like a five 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:10.720 pound weight with a quarter inch steel pin coming out 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:12.280 of the end of it. It's like a little spike, 0:20:12.480 --> 0:20:16.040 and they drop it from ten ft the spike onto 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:21.160 the weakest axis of the uh, the black box. It's 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:24.959 like a puncture test. Yeah, and it nothing happens, so 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:26.679 they move it on to the next test. Yeah. The 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:30.280 static crush, which would be a good band name. Uh. 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:33.800 Five minutes of five thousand pounds per square much pressure 0:20:34.280 --> 0:20:37.320 applied to the six major access points. So it's just 0:20:37.359 --> 0:20:40.119 a constant, not an impact thing. But just let me 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:42.159 see if I can just crush you over time with 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:45.679 brute force. Yeah. It's like a headlock. Yeah, the worst 0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:48.919 headlock you can ever imagine. And then the fire test, 0:20:49.040 --> 0:20:53.560 which uh they fire a propane fireball with three burners 0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:57.159 at about two thousand degrees fahrenheit for an hour and 0:20:57.240 --> 0:20:58.800 just let it sit there and see if it melts 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:02.359 or does anything or explodes or whatever. Yea, it just 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:06.480 sits there. Um, and then the planes frequently go down. 0:21:06.880 --> 0:21:09.720 Well when they go down, they frequently go down into 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:12.520 the ocean or the sea. So your black box has 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:16.120 to survive underwater. So they do a deep sea immersion 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:19.640 test UM, which is like a pressurized tank of water 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:22.480 for twenty four hours. Uh. And then they also do 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:25.959 a saltwater submersion test, so this thing has to basically 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:29.239 sit around in saltwater for thirty days, that's right. And 0:21:29.560 --> 0:21:33.199 finally they will let it soak in other types of 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:37.680 fluids like jet fuel and lubricants and fire extinguisher chemicals 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:40.000 and anything else in a plane that it might end 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:43.480 up submerged in. And if they can withstand sitting in 0:21:43.560 --> 0:21:45.760 jet fuel for a period of time, then you're good 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:48.200 to go. Yeah. And then after all this they put 0:21:48.280 --> 0:21:53.920 a little um mortarboard on the the cylinder and send 0:21:53.920 --> 0:21:56.840 it along its way to be installed in an airplane. 0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:00.760 That's right where it's Sadly, we'll only be used if 0:22:00.800 --> 0:22:04.959 something really bad happens. Alright, So we've set this all up. 0:22:05.160 --> 0:22:09.120 These things are sturdy, they're solid, they're good to go. Uh. 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:11.440 I think we should talk about what happens in the 0:22:11.480 --> 0:22:17.600 event of a crash right after this place. All right, 0:22:17.680 --> 0:22:21.359 So your plane is crashed, Yeah, we're both dead, but 0:22:21.480 --> 0:22:24.159 the black box has survived. It lives on what happens 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:27.720 to it. Well, they have to find it first. Um And, 0:22:27.960 --> 0:22:30.400 like we said, these things are tested to make sure 0:22:30.440 --> 0:22:34.320 that they can withstand deep sea and salt water immersion, 0:22:34.680 --> 0:22:38.720 which they sometimes have to. UM And in the event 0:22:38.800 --> 0:22:41.080 that they are going to go into the water. The 0:22:41.160 --> 0:22:44.800 little handle that has an underwater beacon installed in it 0:22:45.560 --> 0:22:48.800 actually has this water detector and when water comes in 0:22:48.880 --> 0:22:51.120 contact with the beacon, it starts to set it off 0:22:51.760 --> 0:22:54.119 and it sends out a pink I think every minute 0:22:54.160 --> 0:22:58.720 or thirty seconds for the next thirty days or something like. Yeah, 0:22:58.800 --> 0:23:01.720 it's one per second for a month. Yeah. Um. And 0:23:01.840 --> 0:23:04.600 this ping you couldn't hear it if you were listening 0:23:04.640 --> 0:23:07.680