What does an airplane Black Box consist of ?

Question

The Black Box which is Orange in color and is used in Aeroplanes to know what happened at the last moment in case of a mishap.What does it consist of ? What is the circuitry inside the Black box? Where can I find more information about it ?

What is the material used for it as it is not easily damaged.

Many Thanks.

Answer 1

I'm not so sure about the material their made of bu anyway its something able to withstand very high temperatures (up to 800 deg C) and severe impacts with little or no damage at all. To be precise, there are in fact two "black boxes" to be carried aboard each civil (and since 10-12 years ago, all military as well) aircraft:

one is the so called "cockpit voice recorder" which is the one that most commonly is referred to as the black box, and it is nothing else than a recorder which "records" on a tape the last 30-40mins of every conversations having taken place inside the cockpit befoer the crash or accident; this can record both comms between the cockpit and the air traffic control and comms between pilots themselves

the other one, probably less common, is the "flight data recorder" which is another essential tool in uinvestigating accidents and aircrashes: it provides a record of engine status and output, movement of the aircraft's control surfaces and planned route, altitudes, climbs and descents....

Whereas the flight data recorder is automatically controlled by the flight computer, the cockpit voice recorder is connected to a circuit breaker inside the cockpit and can be (though that's ILLEGAL) disconnected by pulling up the cb

:D

Answer 2

Here,

Check this out. It should answer most of your questions.

As to why they don't make airplanes the same as black boxes, this would look pretty silly with wings, wouldn't it?

http://www.l-3ar.com/PDF_Files/MKT051_FA...

Answer 3

depending on the memory media, the inside of the blackbox is either photographic material /SARPP - russian blackbox device, now outdated/ the rest is mostly some type of memory, comparable to the flashdisc.

the outer cover is of steel, and includes the data collecting connector.

Answer 4

thats a good question, but they should make the plan out of it huh, then we all wouldnt be scared to fly