Wednesday, September 02, 2015

Air Disasters Be GONE!




            Techno Thrills
                             

SAVING LIVES HERE BOSS


I'm currently watching Smithsonian Channel's Air Disasters, and I have an invention idea©!

I'll guess that well over 50% of the episodes I've watched involved problems where the pilots knew something was wrong, but had no way of knowing that the flaps, or even the entire tail section had gone missing.  They knew there was an electrical problem, but had no way of looking at the fuse box in the cellar. So, WTF! I'm thinking, why in heaven haven't Boeing, or Air Bus, outfitted their  planes with selfie cams that will monitor any part of the plane inside and out?

Yes, many of the disasters involved planes manufactured before this age of the micro-cam, but I was using multi-VHS, remote controlled video cams in the 1980's to tape weddings.  There is no excuse.  I suspect after this post goes viral, airline  manufacturers will be all into Insta-Camming, but you now what?  Good.  If this will help save lives I am not going to profit from it, so I hereby release this invention for the common good. 
(I am not making this up). You're welcome. 



By the by, the screen cap above is from "Fight For Your Life," where a deranged flight engineer tries to take over a FED EX plane.  This episode is super sphincter gripping; trust me.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

C'mon, if my CAR can tell me when one of my tires is low, an airliner ought to have sensors to indicate PRECISELY what's wrong.

(Of course, it's said that Tazio Nuvolari could tell the air pressure in each of his tires by the seat of his pants.)

DougM said...

Perhaps you'll find this of interest, too.

Stanley said...

Cameras or sensors? Or both? What the camera captures has to be looked at by crisis-overloaded flight crew to obtain information (which might be difficult during those hours when photons are in short supply, but we do have LED lighting now), sensors do it automatically and software can present those data in priority order. Of course, some plane mfg will select Windows 95 (or COBOL) to manage the sensor data negating any value sensors may offer (I can foresee the sensors noting a wing has fallen off and the computer reporting the first class lavatory is out of TP....)

I'd be willing to wager whatever cameras get added to a plane at least 30% of them will be in the wrong place to capture the most important problems.

Rodger the Real King of France said...

They have sensors. What they need is a view of the situation.

BlogDog said...

Didn't the space shuttle add cameras after the problem of the tiles falling off was discovered, albeit tragically discovered? Cameras are so cheap and ubiquitous these days that adding a couple to the plane shouldn't be a problem. Then again, I'm no aeronautical engineer and planes are m-fing complex beasts.

Wabano said...

They do have the sensors and the view, unfortunately...
Take Southern Air Transport(Yes, the CIA freighters) They had a fleet of Boeing 707, with all the fancy electronics and a fleet of DC-8, operated with cables and bellcranks...
The parked seven oh crews lived on mimimum wages(the whole 707 thing is an electrical fault) while the diesel-eight crews flew their asses off. The seven oh seven have stopped flying commercially thirty years ago while the diesel-eight are still flying their asses off...
The KC-135(converted B-707) cost the Air Force trillion of wasted maintenance money over what the DC-8 would have cost...all this to say: "KISS"
(Keep it Simple, Stupid) The basic engeneering principle that, for example, made the Russian and American tanks beat the fancy german tanks in WW II

Anonymous said...

In WWII they made the mistake of reinforcing the shot-up areas of the planes that MADE IT HOME.

Finally the clue bird landed and they started analyzing damage to the plans that did NOT make it back and changing the design accordingly.

Whaddaya bet that same logic gets used in addition to the pork laden and corrupt world of .GOV?

Wabano said...

The Navy and the RAF turned the Brewster Buffalo into lead sleds that all got shot down the first few weeks of the war...The Finns lightened it up and made the Brewster the highest scoring fighter of all times...(Smart tactics helped a lot too) Funny looking plane, like a Polikarpov or a Gee Bee on steroids.
On the way to get slaughtered:
http://40.media.tumblr.com/93a6ccb0e8260c44b63679586d90b4bd/tumblr_inline_nmyixxfYqj1t90ue7_1280.jpg
Continuation war..Popov killer...477 offed moskals vs 19 Finns lost.
http://41.media.tumblr.com/19a22e79aacfa8490c5d37ac95a838d3/tumblr_inline_nmyiyhdtox1t90ue7_1280.jpg

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