RADIO communications between plane pilots and airport dispatchers are now permanently recorded on wax cylinders by an electrical machine recently installed by the U. S. Bureau of Air Commerce at a California landing field. Reports made by pilots and orders given by dispatchers, kept on file in record form, are thus available to examiners investigating the causes of any accident to a plane.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
The First Black Box?
This posting on Modern Mechanix, from the July 1937 issue of Popular Science, suprised me a little. While I am not surprised that someone had the idea to record air to ground radio transmissions to aid accident investigations in 1937, I do find it interesting that they would use wax cylinders. That technology seems out of date, even at that time.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment