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After the baffling disappearance in March of Flight MH370, critics accused the aviation industry of "dithering" over equipping jets with real-time tracking systems. Now, with another passenger plane lost, the call for action is becoming more insistent.
Tracking aircraft by satellite and live-streaming of black box data were cited as top priorities by industry insiders after the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 with 239 people on board. Its fate remains a mystery despite a long underwater search west of Australia. Members of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)—the UN's aviation body—agreed in the aftermath of the incident to mandate real-time tracking.
But they did not set a timeline as airlines mulled the additional costs involved. Many carriers have been losing money for years. Now, with the apparent loss of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 on Sunday off Indonesia, the calls for immediate changes have returned with vehemence.
http://phys.org/news/2014-12-airasia-fuels-real-time-tracking.html
[Related]: http://www.airtrafficmanagement.net/2014/12/iata-no-silver-bullet-solution-on-tracking-in-wake-of-mh370/
(Score: 2) by tibman on Tuesday December 30 2014, @10:28PM
Anything with a brand name that can be ordered off the internet is "off the shelf". I'll bet that includes nearly every instrument plugged into the pilot's panel : ) The second link has a coverage map in the specs tab.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 30 2014, @10:42PM
And these products are approved by FAA for aircraft use where? And approved by ICAO where? Oh, turns out you don't know anything about type acceptance for avionics. Not surprised.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Wednesday December 31 2014, @01:34AM
You guys are hard to please. I just googled "satellite track faa approved" and found a bunch. Here's link #1: http://blueskynetwork.com/product/faa-certified-d1000a/ [blueskynetwork.com]
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 31 2014, @04:46PM
Yes, we are hard to please.
Now you can provide not just unit costing (which I'm sure will be made up sooner or later by ticket prices, but I'd expect something not less than $8000 per unit,) ongoing maintenance costs, and also ongoing operational costs for an Iridium data link (which is where I expect the real costs lie if you want to do something that it constantly transmitting data at not more than ten minute intervals.)
Then tell me how much we have to add to the cost of the average ticket, accounting for how many passengers we'll lose to the competition because they're NOT required to do any of this.
Then, fancy web-app or not, if you're seriously looking at using this for fleet monitoring, you'll need custom monitoring applications that will report when the heartbeat signal is lost, new staff hires for monitoring this whiz-bang thing (maybe you can absorb the manpower into Operations, but I doubt it,) protocols for attempting to re-establish contact with the plane (as it is far more likely a given plane's unit will fail rather than it being crashed,) and of course how this whole thing dovetails into what the airlines currently *actually do* in the event of a missing plane - which they already have plans for.
All of this is just a fancy way of saying that while your idea has merit and would be nice, actually putting it into practice is a hell of a lot more complex and costly than "just do it."
(Score: 2) by tibman on Wednesday December 31 2014, @06:17PM
You are assuming that knowing where every plane was in your fleet (in real-time) wouldn't save you money somewhere. If your friends could track your flight in real-time then that is also a perk. They can check their phone and know exactly where you are and not just some best guess "on-time" listed on the website. "Just do it" doesn't mean it doesn't cost money or time. It means just do it. I have installed and used two-way satellite communication systems. They are as difficult to maintain as a normal radio (not difficult). Transmitter, receiver, laptop, and a bunch of cables. That is for a two-way system. It will cost more money to install the thing than to purchase it. There is so much nay-saying over something that has been solved for a decade. Google will turn up plenty of options if anyone actually cares to look instead of judging my suggestion without any research.
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