Black Box Recovery

Possible or practical??

I don't know. We went through about 2000 sonobuoys in six months. They scuttle when their done.

Probably not.

I don't know much about avionics, but a little thought brings up a few potential issues; how can you ensure activation and deployment, from a aircraft that could hit the surface of the water at wildly varying angles and speeds, as well as in multiple pieces, not to mention the issue of the constant drift with wind and currents? Not to mention the issues of high integrity data connections that can easily be severed to deploy the black box/ buoy. Or were you thinking more along the lines of something that deployed from the part of the plane where the black box was, without firing it out as well?

Just put GPS trackers on the aircraft - then you know where they are/went.

Why not just paint the black box International Orange?

Then it'll be easy to see.

This begs the question of how many planes ditch in water as opposed to unintentionally flying into terrain?

How many black boxes have never been recovered? Is it worth it?

ya mean kinda like this??

Where did that come from??????????????????????

Yes, that's what they look like, ever wonder why it's called a 'black' box since the only visible 'black' is text and handle?

It's a generic term....

"In science, computing, and engineering, a black box is a device, system or object which can be viewed in terms of its input, output (or transfer characteristics) without any knowledge of its internal workings. Its implementation is "opaque" (black). Almost anything might be referred to as a black box: a transistor, an algorithm, or the human brain."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_box

I'd be surprised if they are not doing that.

I think recovery of the bodies is more important than black boxes at the moment.

those (orange) boxes are going the way of the 8 track tape. its GPS and satellites anymore. MH370 will probably be the last to simply disappear without a trace.

Do each aircraft's/airline's blackbox emit a different RF?.

No.

How often would we be looking for more than one pair of black boxes within 50 miles of each other??

its a big ocean.

They're emitting RF...works quit well above water, salt water severely attenuates RF. If you want to use a sonobuoy to locate it, make it output an audio signal that the sonobuoy can receive.