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Flight recorder facts for kids

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Flightrecorder
Both side views of a cockpit voice recorder, one type of flight recorder

A flight recorder is a recorder placed in an aircraft to help with investigating an aircraft accident or incident. For this reason, they have to be capable of surviving extremely rough treatment. They are usually built to withstand an impact of 3600 g and temperatures of over 1,000 °C (as required by EUROCAE ED-112), because a powerful impact followed by a very hot fire is what often happens in a plane crash.

There are two types of protected Flight Recorder, Flight data recorder (FDR) and Cockpit voice recorder (CVR). In some cases, the two recorders may be combined in a single FDR/CVR unit. The first combined flight recorder was invented by Australian scientist, David Warren.

These recorders are often called "black boxes". They can be used in other vehicles including trains and cars. The car's recorder can monitor the speed of the car or the sharpness of turns. The train's recorder can be used to upgrade after a crash to reduce the chance of another crash.

Images for kids

  • Fdr sidefront

    A modern flight data recorder; the underwater locator beacon is the small cylinder on the far right. (Translation of warning message in French: "Flight recorder do not open".) The warning appears in English on the other side.

  • Soviet MS-61 Cockpit Voice Recorder

    Cold War-era Soviet MS-61 cockpit voice recorder from a MiG-21 interceptor

  • 2002-dmuseum-luftfahrt-014-650

    A Fairchild A100 cockpit voice recorder, on display in the Deutsches Museum. This is a magnetic-tape unit built to an old standard, TSO C84, as shown on the nameplate. The text on the side in French says "Flight recorder do not open".

  • NTSB investigators remove the recorders from UPS 1354 (9518908718)

    NTSB investigators recover flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder from UPS Airlines Flight 1354

  • CVR in NTSB Lab (33406167018)

    NTSB staff examine the memory boards of the cockpit voice recorder from Atlas Air Flight 3591. The boards may have suffered water damage

  • J M Briscoe24 07 200713 05 14IMG2104 GEE AIRBORNE

    GEE airborne equipment, with the R1355 receiver on the left and the Indicator Unit Type 62A "black box" on the right.

  • Black box.aeroplane

    A typical flight recorder

  • Grossi-7

    Cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder, each with an underwater locator beacon on the front

  • Underwaterlocatorbeacon

    An underwater locator beacon; the ballpoint pen provides scale

  • Two-In-One Data Recorder

    A cockpit voice and data recorder (CVDR), with its attached ULB visible on the left side of the unit

  • Flightrecorders

    A flight data recorder and a cockpit voice recorder installed on their mounting trays in the rear fuselage of an aircraft

  • 东航MU5735班机第二部黑匣子寻获现场 Second Black box of crashed flight MU5735 retrieved 1

    The flight data recorder for crashed flight MU5735.

  • GravadoVoz

    Cockpit voice recorder memory module of PR-GTD, a Gol Transportes Aéreos Boeing 737-8EH SFP, found in the Amazon in Mato Grosso, Brazil.

  • Caixa-Preta GOL

    After the crash of Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907, Brazilian Air Force personnel show the recovered flight data recorder

  • DFDR from Flight 294

    The digital flight data recorder from West Air Sweden Flight 294. All data was collected, even though the rest of the aircraft was heavily fragmented

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Caja negra (transporte) para niños

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