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- ConcordeBoy
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Black Boxes: Permanent, Or Changeable?
Are an aircraft's Black Boxes with the aircraft from rollout to decommission (or crash).... or are they changeable/exchangeable during maintenance checks?
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RE: Black Boxes: Permanent, Or Changeable?
They are easilly replaceable.
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- MD11Engineer
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RE: Black Boxes: Permanent, Or Changeable?
First, if you are talking about a Flight Data Recorder (FDR) and a Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR), they are not black, but bright orange, with reflective stripes along the side.
They are mounted in standard racks, just loosen two hold down nuts and pull them out (after haviing pulled the respective circuit breakers). Electrical contacts are made through a plug and a receptacle at the back of the unit, which contacts automatically when the uniti is pushed into position.
The same system is used for most other avionics boxes.
Jan
They are mounted in standard racks, just loosen two hold down nuts and pull them out (after haviing pulled the respective circuit breakers). Electrical contacts are made through a plug and a receptacle at the back of the unit, which contacts automatically when the uniti is pushed into position.
The same system is used for most other avionics boxes.
Jan
Je Suis Charlie et je suis Ahmet aussi
RE: Black Boxes: Permanent, Or Changeable?
Lets face it, if you wanted the FDR / CVR to provide information should the aircraft crash you would want to ensure that they would work. Therefore they are subject to routine maintenance just like other critical systems. As has been mentioned above they are easy to replace, though not always in the most easy place to get to 
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- AirframeAS
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RE: Black Boxes: Permanent, Or Changeable?
The boxes are servicable during every check at AS. So they are taken out and new/used ones are put in or they service the same one and put it back in during the same check.
A Safe Flight Begins With Quality Maintenance On The Ground.
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- MD11Engineer
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RE: Black Boxes: Permanent, Or Changeable?
The servicing we do on certain A-checks is to replace the underwater locator beacon, which is attached to the front of the units, because it contains a battery, which time expires. Else we rarely change the recorders.
Jan
Jan
Je Suis Charlie et je suis Ahmet aussi
RE: Black Boxes: Permanent, Or Changeable?
There are also FAA requirements on how long after the box has been removed from an aircraft can it be put back into a new plane.
"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog"
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- MD11Engineer
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RE: Black Boxes: Permanent, Or Changeable?
Both recorders and their locator beacons are time limited items.
Jan
Jan
Je Suis Charlie et je suis Ahmet aussi
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- LineMechQX
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RE: Black Boxes: Permanent, Or Changeable?
Black boxes, aren't just for crashes, they are often very useful for on ground mtx as well. Often times after an inflight incident, ie one plane I worked on, had one spoiler fully deploy inflight for no apparent reason. After the airplane landed, OCM was called out to pull the FDR c/b, to keep the information from being recorded over until airline mtx, could come out and R&R the FDR. Which was then sent to avionics for download. Later that evening after the a/c was ferried back to the mtx base, we received a print out and graph of several (not all) of the inflight parameters. This allowed us to see the spoiler had several smaller deployments on the same flight not noticed by the crew, with no outside commands or reasons to do so. This was helpful in that it allowed us to focus on the actuator itself, rather then spending time troubleshooting on board computers. In the end it was a bad actuator and a simple R&R fixed the fault.
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