Aircraft Flight Video Recorder

From PDI

Preface

In the unfortunate event of an airplane crash, the investigation most of the time has to rely on objective but rather incomplete information provided by the airplane's flight data recorders (FDRs). Unfortunately, they only register the parameters of the airplane's machinery, and seldom provide additional clues on the actual events onboard the airplane and/or in the cockpit. It should be sufficiently obvious that quite a few investigations would be much more effective (such as ruling out the terrorist attack theory outright) if visual data from the airplane was available post-mortem.

Claims

1. A number of independent airplane surveillance video cameras placed in strategical locations in the airplane cabin and in the cockpit, capable of observing all of the interior of the aircraft;
2. A number of independent airplane surveillance video cameras as claimed in claim 1, each equipped with or including a compact digital video recording device;
3. A compact digital video recording device as claimed in claim 2, utilizing a flash memory storage medium;
4. A flash memory storage medium as claimed in claim 4 encased in crash-proof, fire resistant casing;
5. A compact digital video recording device as claimed in claim 2, programmed to reuse the flash memory storage device's capacity by erasing the parts of the recorded video file older than a pre-set amount of time;
6. A number of independent airplane surveillance video cameras as claimed in claim 2, additionally equipped with a data link permitting the cockpit crew to observe the videos recorded by a chosen camera;
7. An aircraft video surveillance system as claimed in claim 6, utilizing a wireless data link;
8. An aircraft video surveillance system as claimed in claim 6, utilizing a short-range "over-the-metal" radio data link;
9. A compact digital video recording device as claimed in claim 2, employing a rechargeable battery normally trickle-charged from the airplane's power system, capable of continuing the recording for a limited period of time in case of power failure.

In layman's terms

It would really help if we could see what had been happening on the downed airplane just before the crash. We have surveillance cameras on the buses; why not have them on the airplanes? The cameras would record the last 30 minutes of flight over and over again on a flash card -- flash cards, even unprotected, are known to have survived explosions. Each camera would be a single, self-enclosed, independent camera-and-recorder unit, so the failure of one won't break another. That kind of equipment already exists on the consumer market, priced well below $1000 apiece. Each camera will have a small rechargeable battery in it, charged from the airplane's power grid, and thus still capable of recording the events in case of power problem. Additionally, the cameras may be wired (or just connected into a wireless network, using the airplane's structure as radio wave conductor) to provide the cockpit crew the view of the passenger cabin, to see if there's a terrorist threat, what terrorists are doing, etc.