Airlines still unable to use new software for black box analysis

R Sreekumar

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Lack of solid state recorders, old black boxes that

measure fewer parameters and high investments are hindering the use of daily

automated analysis of black box data vital to ensure airline safety as mandated

by director general of civil aviation (DGCA) since 1998. This is despite the

availability of newer avionics software that can record and log thousands of

engineering parameters on an ongoing basis.






Many airline companies including the Indian Airlines, Air India and private
airlines have planes that are more than 15 years old and black box data is

stored in magnetic tape. When huge volume of technical parameters are to be

recorded for analysis using automated software, older black boxes record as few

as 35 or 50 parameters, according to Binu Jacob, CEO of Dimensions Cybertech

India Pvt. Ltd. A total solution for automated analysis of flight data in

aircraft has been developed by Dimensions Cybertech. "The quality of data

received from magnetic tape is inferior to those from solid state

recorders", he added. "India has one of the stringent aviation safety

laws. However it's enforcement may take more time as airlines retire their old

fleet and buy or lease newer airplanes necessary for software

compatibility", according to C Jayachandran, executive director of Trident

Avionics, UAE.






Black box was conventionally used to do a postmortem after a crash. DGCA decided
to enforce the daily analysis of block box data as black box often contained

data that was six months old and therefore useless. A daily analysis would

reveal how safe a flight was for its passengers as it checks several parameters

to detect how far they deviated from the norm, Jayachandran added.






Dimensions has developed two software programs Software Analysis of Flight
Exceedance (SAFE) and RATE for easy analysis of black box data in association

with Trident Avionics of Fujairah, UAE who are providing hardware support.

Standard software available from black box manufacturers give a line by line

replay of recorded data and deriving useful information from this huge amount of

data is a tedious process. Moreover, such software is also not customized for

different types of aircraft (Boeing 747, Airbus 320 etc). SAFE and RATE is

currently being used in Jet Airways, Binu Jacob said. The products will be

marketed globally in Europe and the Middle East.






Using SAFE, an airline can download data from the flight data recorder (FDR)
after a few hours of flying to analyze the values of each engineering parameter.

A few important parameters include speed of each engine, exhaust gas

temperature, ground speed, take off pitch, vertical acceleration, throttle

position, flap movements, roll angle, heading, air speed and taxi speed etc.

SAFE has successfully detected abnormalities such as high exhaust gas

temperature during engine start up, high taxi speed, high pitch rate during take

off, high cruise altitude, low flap setting during take off, low oil pressure,

high engine speed, high rate of descent, high roll angle etc. during the last

two years in Jet Airways. SAFE keeps a history of all data files analyzed and

the events detected. An interface for SAFE with flight simulator software is

being developed. With this, the user will be able to visualize in 3-D animation

the past events by reconstructing flight path, cockpit instrument displays, take

off and landing on airport among others. SAFE enables the cabin crew to know

where they deviated from the norm during important stages of a flight. SAFE has

data import module, replay module, analysis module, statistics module, utilities

module and event log module.






RATE is the software made to assist the airline operator to monitor the
performance of the aircraft and its crew. The data related to condition of the

engine, airplane components and actions of the crew areas is read in from the

black box and analyzed. This overall monitoring helps to improve maintenance of

the planes and training standards of the crew. Jet Airways has leased aircraft

whose charges also have a variable component that depends on many aspects of how

the planes are operated. Block time of flight, time in air, take off thrust

levels have a significant effect on the amounts payable as lease charges. The

airline earlier depended on the manually recorded readings of the parameters to

assess the health and performance of the aircraft. Now it is done electronically

using the customized RATE software that is now being validated by Jet Airways.






Many global airline operators and professional bodies of aviation have called
for stricter enforcement of automated daily black box analysis using customized

software. The next generation of automated black box analysis would be done in

real time using artificial intelligence instead of the present system of

analyzing post flight. The airline crew would then be alerted on a possible

danger lurking near and make necessary corrections or an emergency landing. This

would require huge investments in satellite communications systems and software

by airline companies. "We have entered a niche area in avionics software

that has tremendous potential and exciting opportunities in future," Jacob

and Jayachandran said.