Boeing 787 and 500 Gb or briefly about the means of objective control

Not so long ago, a note appeared on the hub : that the Boeing 787 aircraft generates over 500 GB of information per flight, which must be transmitted to the ground in real time. As an aviation engineer, I immediately felt a lot of fun. Therefore, I decided to tell a little about the means of objective control and cast doubt on the very controversial statement that airlines are turning into IT companies, the main task of which is information processing.

So, let's begin!

Any on-board recorder of flight modes is generally designed to record the operating modes of individual critical components, assemblies and aircraft systems. For example: high-pressure turbine revolutions, temperature in the combustion chamber, instant fuel consumption of an aircraft engine; angle of deviation of the steering surfaces; current values ​​of speed, altitude, overload, etc.

Registration systems by the principle of action are:

1. Analogue continuous operation.
The most typical representative is the K3-63 three-component recorder, which records the indicators of altitude, instrument speed and horizontal overload (plus a time stamp). Recording is made with a corundum cutter on a special transparent film, i.e. K3-63 is a real analog device.

2. Analog - pulse.
For example - MSRP-12-96. In addition to the analog parameters, this system also records one-time commands: a fire on an airplane, dangerous depressurization, flap cleaning and release, negative thrust of left and right aircraft engines, releasing screws from the stop, turning off the autopilot, etc. Information is recorded on magnetic tape with continuous erasing in such a way that it contains information about the last 75 minutes of the flight.

3. Digital pulse (code - pulse).
Representatives - MSRP-64M-2, MSRP-256. Recording is also done on magnetic tape, but already in encoded form at different frequencies. Of course, more modern systems already use solid state drives.

Registration systems are also classified according to their intended purpose.test, emergency and operational . The latter do not have a protected hull and are designed to control the operation of systems and crew after each flight .

In addition to recording flight modes and system parameters, individual devices record crew conversations with each other and with ground services. Also, video surveillance systems are currently being installed on airplanes to evaluate crew actions, although, for the most part, this is some kind of fad and is never a good practice (constant surveillance will strain any person).

So, we see that the registration systems exist very different, although I gave only a couple of examples from domestic (or rather, from the times of the USSR), which, nevertheless, are still used on many aircraft (Tu-134, 154, Il -76, An-24 and the like). Processing and analysis of information occurs already on the ground after a flight (or accident) using special equipment. About any 500 gigabytes and speech can not be in principlebecause 40-50 parameters are most important, some of which are just one-time commands. The practice of transmitting information in real time has not yet become widespread and is still a challenge for the minds of the future. I also want to note that the interpretation of flight information is only a small part in the infrastructure for maintenance of aviation equipment.

The statement by the Virgin Atlantic’s IT director should be viewed simply as the marketing statement of an IT specialist who does not particularly understand the purpose of objective control and wants to get more money out of the senior management to “decipher” the shot HD movie on board. The main objective of the airlines has been and remains the transportation of passengers and goods with the appropriate level of safety and comfort.