The Remote Aircraft Flight Recorder and Advisory Telemetry System, RAFT (Patented), And It’s Ability to Reduce Fatal Air Accidents By 78% While Enhancing Air Space Capacity, Operational Efficiency and Aircraft Security

RAFT is a worldwide, real-time aircraft remote monitoring and recording system that takes an aircraft’s Digital Flight Data Recorder, DFDR, monitoring parameters out of an archival data base and plugs them into a safe, readily available, usable accident prevention system. RAFT combines the DFDR sensor data with the data from the Air Traffic Management/Control (ATM/C) system along with GPS/GLONASS, Map, Terrain and Weather information to actively anticipate and prevent accidents. It ends the information vacuum created by the aircraft and the ATM/C where presently each of them, acting independently, don’t have sensors that directly measure the necessary parameters required to prevent a crash. By the sharing of the digital data, all of the necessary crash prevention parameters become visible and usable to actively anticipate and prevent problems from turning into fatal accidents. It opens the whole field of commercial aviation to the use of expert systems to minimize fatal accidents. Privileged non-safety related data is ciphered at the aircraft to insure air carrier confidentiality. In addition, the global telemetry of the DFDR parameters allows aircraft monitored data to be simply and safely stored on the ground; thus making it readily available for aircraft statistical analysis programs that enhance air carrier efficiency and safety. Also, in the advent of a crash, it provides a timely accurate global estimate of the downed aircraft’s location for search, recovery and hopefully rescue operations. It establishes an aircraft global data super highway that uses high bandwidth satellite and ground Internet communication links to supply the aircraft advisories necessary to enhance air space capacity, operational efficiency, security and reduce fatal accidents by seventy-eight percent. RAFT brings to aviation what the Internet brought to data visibility and utilization. It unifies the National Airspace System (NAS) and fills the information vacuum that has been responsible for twenty years of a stagnant air carrier fatal accident rate. This information vacuum has seriously compromised the safety net and is the major cause of the stagnant air carrier fatal accident rate. It has also led to a situation where currently air travel is over nine times more lethal than bus travel, over three times more lethal than car travel and over fifteen times more lethal than space shuttle travel. RAFT makes all of the necessary safety data visible and readily available to the people who need to solve problems. It does this in a timely and cost effective manner, before they become fatal accidents. This is accomplished by reducing workloads while unambiguously enhancing the situation awareness. The present overly dependent verbal system, that is prone to fatal misinterpretations, is supplemented with visual safety emergency icons and physical synthetic vision representations of the situation. RAFT also provides functional redundancy, simplifies the communication system and enhances the safety and timely availability of the recorded data. It is the only system capable of meeting the national goal of reducing the fatal accident rate by a factor of five in ten years and provides the necessary safety net that should be put in place prior to any transition to free flight.

Language

  • English

Media Info

  • Media Type: Web
  • Features: Figures; Tables;
  • Pagination: pp 247-270
  • Monograph Title: Proceedings of the International Symposium on Transportation Recorders. Transportation Recording: 2000 and Beyond, May 3-5, 1999, Arlington, Virginia

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01088106
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Files: TRIS
  • Created Date: Jan 30 2008 12:31PM