Flight Data Recording Questions and Answers

Answer: C

The data recorder holds a full day of operation while the voice recorder historically held only 30 minutes, later extended to two hours and now to 25 hours on new aircraft. The recording is a loop, so the oldest material is overwritten.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Material older than the retention period is overwritten

The recorder writes continuously into a fixed memory, returning to the beginning when it reaches the end, so it always holds the most recent interval and nothing before it.

Recording therefore never stops for want of space, which is the point - but the corollary is that evidence is lost if the recorder is left running. That is why the circuit breaker is pulled promptly after a serious incident, and why voice retention has been extended from 30 minutes to two hours and now 25 on new types.

Answer: A

The unit must survive a severe deceleration, a penetration test, a sustained crush load, a high temperature fire and prolonged immersion under pressure. The memory module is protected by layers of insulation and armour within the outer casing.

Answer: B

Correct answer: It is not crash protected

A quick access recorder holds the same data stream but in an ordinary enclosure, easy to reach and to download. It exists for routine flight data monitoring, not for accident investigation, so it needs no armour.

That is what makes it useful: the crash-protected recorder is deliberately difficult to access, and downloading it after every flight would be impractical. The QAR is not mandated by regulation, records data rather than voice, and typically holds a shorter period.

Answer: C

Exceedance events across many flights reveal where procedures or training need attention. The data is normally de-identified under an agreement with the crews, because a programme perceived as punitive stops producing honest data.

Answer: D

Ejecting the unit removes it from the fire and from a deep water sink, and its buoyancy makes recovery far more likely. The approach is long established on military aircraft and has been proposed repeatedly for transport aircraft.

Answer: A

Streaming only on a trigger keeps the bandwidth cost manageable while ensuring some data survives even if the aircraft is never found. It complements rather than replaces the recorder, which still holds the full data set.

Answer: B

A damaged module may be made worse by an incorrect readout attempt, so the condition is assessed and the module removed carefully first. Salt water contamination in particular is treated before any electrical connection is made.

Answer: C

Anchoring the trace to events with an independent time reference confirms the frame layout and the conversion factors are right. A misapplied conversion would otherwise produce a plausible but entirely wrong picture of the flight.

Answer: D

Each generation of requirements reflects gaps found in real investigations, and cheap solid state storage removed the practical obstacle. Early recorders captured a handful of parameters where a modern installation captures hundreds.