Mystery Air Crash Black Box Found Sans Memory Part 205
coondoggie writes "The ongoing undersea search of the Air France Flight 447 wreckage had yielded one of the key items investigators were looking for this week: the flight data recorder. Unfortunately, their hopes for more information about the crash were set back, as the robot subs scouring the ocean floor retrieved the box only to find its memory part missing."
Missing (Score:2, Funny)
Memory Part? (Score:2)
Re:Memory Part? (Score:5, Informative)
There is a technical term for it, but basically it's the actual box on the recorder chasis which stores the data; I'm not sure whether it's magnetic storage or flash memory in this case.
And separation is certainly not unknown, there was a crash a few years back where it also separated and was later found. Odds are this one will be too, but that could take some time if it's buried under other debris.
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From the article, it sounds like the flight data recorder has basically been smashed to pieces. This is usually what happens to them; they're really only useful in relatively low-speed accidents.
Re:Memory Part? (Score:4, Interesting)
From the picture I've seen, it looks like the chassis was bent by the impact and that probably caused the memory unit's mounting to break. So the memory unit itself is probably still intact somewhere.
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They do! It's called an airplane...
Re:Memory Part? (Score:5, Informative)
From the article, it sounds like the flight data recorder has basically been smashed to pieces. This is usually what happens to them; they're really only useful in relatively low-speed accidents.
That's not the case at all. FDRs commonly survive catastrophic high speed accidents. For example, USAir 427 in 1994 crashed in a near vertical nose-down attitude, and pretty much all that was left of that accident was small bits and pieces. The FDR was recovered and was usable. They rolled and went nose down from 6,000 feet, and the last data on the recorder indicated an airspeed of 261 knots (300 mph, or about 135 meters per second), at a 80 nose-down attitude, virtually straight into the ground. If an FDR can survive that, it can survive damn near anything.
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No. Impact direction, spin and position are all factors as well.
Many are damaged. Hey, I say a guy survive a 150MPH impacts once, so I guess anyone can?
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Many are damaged. I can't think of more than maybe one case where the data wasn't still extremely helpful.
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Sure, planes back into mountains all the time.
You can hit tail-first without backing up. Try a 90 degrees change in pitch or yaw. [fiu.edu]
After all, no plane would ever crash if it were on a perfectly controlled flight. One of the reasons for a plane crash is if it suffers, for any reason, a big change in orientation ("attitude" in aeronautical terms).
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But can it survive millennia under water?
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It's hard to tell whether that's a freak case or not. The hard drive that survived the Columbia space shuttle explosion, ploughed into the ground at speeds definitely higher than its warranty permitted and yet was readable is probably more a testament to the sheer randomness of life than to good manufacturing practices. Having said that, FDRs are padded multiple times over and it would not surprise anyone if it had survived just fine. Certainly the salvage people are saying the shedding of the outer casing
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Where do you get this? I can't think of hardly any cases where the recording was completely unusable, except a few times where the recording was later overwritten.
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Re:Memory Part? (Score:4, Informative)
Not sure if this is relevant but I once worked on a recording device for FA/18s. The module which stores the data plugs into a slot in the aircraft or an external reader. It is approximately 80*80*30mm and grooved so it can only slide into its slot one way. On the 30*80mm side which sits flush with the surface of the reader there is a hinged lever and a locking catch. To insert the cartridge you push it say 60mm into the slot, then engage the lever with a bar on the reader surface and use leverage to push it the rest of the way. On the opposite side of the cartridge from the lever there is a 25 pin D plug which mates with a socket on the reader (or aircraft). The recording mechanism is hidden though at the time I did this work it must have been streaming tape like a TK50.
I could imagine a cartridge like this popping out of the box which writes the data to it on impact. The cartridge is extremely robust and will be probably sitting on the bottom around there somewhere. Of course the system on the airbus could be totally different from the one I saw.
Re:Memory Part? (Score:4, Informative)
From: http://www51.honeywell.com/aero/common/documents/Flight_Data_Recorder_(SSFDR).pdf [honeywell.com]
The SSFDR's crash survivable memory unit (CSMU) provides for complete data recovery when subjected
to the crash conditions stipulated in ED-55 and ED-56a:
Impact Shock 3400G, 6.5 milliseconds
Penetration Resistance 500 lb. weight from 10 feet
Static Crush 5000 lbs., 5 minutes
High Temperature Fire 1100C, 30 minutes
Low Temperature Fire 260C, 10 hours (per ED-56a)
Deep Sea Pressure and Sea Water/Fluids Immersion 20,000 feet, 30 days
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Deep Sea Pressure and Sea Water/Fluids Immersion 20,000 feet, 30 days
Still. They could be lucky. Its not too hard to build a storage device to survive longer times and higher pressure.
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My understanding is that it is not this deep. The other thing about that number is that that was the test. Ditto on the pingers lasting for 30 days (they ordinarily last longer but they must last at least 30).
Re:Memory Part? (Score:5, Funny)
"Could there have been any sort of sabotage?"
Mischievous squids?
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"Could there have been any sort of sabotage?"
Mischievous squids?
I smiled.
Our family has a cottage in the middle of nowhere and all the neighbours are nice, but that doesn't stop my urban dwelling brother from obsessively locking his car. I keep asking him if he's worried about the raccoons taking midnight joyrides.
Re:Memory Part? (Score:4, Funny)
Our family has a cottage in the middle of nowhere and all the neighbours are nice, but that doesn't stop my urban dwelling brother from obsessively locking his car. I keep asking him if he's worried about the raccoons taking midnight joyrides.
Haven't you seen raccoons washing their hands in a stream? It's not about being sanitary, it's a guilty conscience combined with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
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Haven't you seen raccoons washing their hands in a stream? It's not about being sanitary, it's a guilty conscience combined with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Aren't they just washing the grease off their hands so they won't leave any fingerprints?
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Habits are most effective when maintained, and insurance companies are less likely to reimburse you if your car wasn't locked.
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Honest people are nice and all, but in reality, does anyone ever not get reimbursed for this reason? I mean, who blurts out 'well, I left my car unlocked, and it got stolen', rather than just 'my car got stolen'.
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Our family has a cottage in the middle of nowhere and all the neighbours are nice, but that doesn't stop my urban dwelling brother from obsessively locking his car. I keep asking him if he's worried about the raccoons taking midnight joyrides.
I always lock my car too. I basically promised the insurance company I would, so I do. Your neighbors might be nice, and your neighbors teenage kids might be nice too, but even nice teenage kids with a bit of booze in them can suddenly think that taking an unlocked car for a joy ride is a good idea. And most crimes would be done by non-locals anyway... your nice neighbors might notice them and take a description so you can catch them later, but that doesn't necessarily get your car back. Your brother might
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Beyond that -- if someone wants your car, locked doors are not going to stop them. I lock it to keep mischief out/keep people from taking shit that's not worth breaking in for (though I have had my cassette adapter stolen via broken windows -- I guess when you want one, you want one).
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Sounds like a good deal to me.
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"Our family has a cottage in the middle of nowhere and all the neighbours are nice, but that doesn't stop my urban dwelling brother from obsessively locking his car. I keep asking him if he's worried about the raccoons taking midnight joyrides."
Habits die hard. And I'd rather be in the habit of always locking my car, than getting into the habit of leaving it unlocked, and someday having it bite me in the ass when I move back into an urban setting.
Yes, door locks won't prevent a dedicated thief from entering
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that doesn't stop my urban dwelling brother from obsessively locking his car
It's a good habit to be in and a bad habit to have lost, once you're back in the big smoke. Moreover, if you want to prevent opportunistic searches during traffic stops ("you don't mind if I search your car? You don't have anything to hide, do you?") Locking your doors once you get out is a great way to short circuit the officers smoothly choreographed and often practiced routine. He has to ask for your key or ask you to unlock the car at which point refusing to consent to the search is a lot simpler than
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It probably was. Almost nothing bad actually happens in the world, it's only slow news days that cause crime.
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How did they know your wallet was in the car? All bets are off if you leave shit in plain sight.
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It is perhaps a sign of the times that I cannot tell if you are being sarcastic, trolling, or sincerely believe what you posted.
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I thought the same thing, so I look at some of his other posts..and I STILL don't know.
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Is that a technical term?
TFA is Michael Cooney's Layer 8 blog. I'll give Cooney the benefit of the doubt and assume he did the 30 seconds of research [google.com] necessary to find out [honeywell.com] the correct term [l-3com.com] and just assume he misplaced a key memory part.
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The same thing happened for the crash of Ethiopian flight 409. The memory was found 6 days later, only partially damaged. From avherald.com:
The cockpit voice recorder was recovered from the sea on Feb 10th 2010 however the memory part was missing. The memory was recovered on Feb 16th 2010, however one of the 16 memory chips was found cracked resulting in about 10 seconds of recordings missing every 4 minutes. The chip is likely to be unreadable, however additional attempts to restore the chip's contents are
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Nonsense. The crash was not even likely to be their fault.
They did not pay the 20$ fee? (Score:2, Funny)
The True Story (Score:4, Funny)
The missing memory chip only confirms that the Greys were there to teleport the chip to their holographic dimension before the passengers disappeared in the Bermuda triangle, only to be transported to Layer-7 in Dulce.
This then confirms that Kennedy was shot by the mafia to protect the Illuminati-Majestic-12 conspiracy. Also, the chip had the location of the nuclear weapons in Iraq.
Obviously.
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Oh, c'mon. Certainly Gaddafi would have outsourced the bomb part. What kind of fools do you take us for?
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Now, if only they make it mandatory for those governors of the states (Texas, Georgia, Alabama, et al.) requesting emergency federal aid to fork over THEIR birth certificates.
Of course, I'm sure Donald Trump has already forged an American birth certificate for his hairpiece, who recently announced it, too, is running for the presidency (should be some serious competit
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Geez, I was just about to fill in everyone about this, but there's always some wise ass who beats me to it. What a compleat downer, dood!
Now, if only they make it mandatory for those governors of the states (Texas, Georgia, Alabama, et al.) requesting emergency federal aid to fork over THEIR birth certificates.
Of course, I'm sure Donald Trump has already forged an American birth certificate for his hairpiece, who recently announced it, too, is running for the presidency (should be some serious competition for Bachmannmeister).
forgive me if I'm wrong, but there is no law that says you have to be born a us citizen to be a governator. As much as I would love to think that Obama is Kenyan I find it pretty hard to believe that not even the donald has turned up proof otherwise. I mean if we can elect a Kenyan to president, then austria can't be far behind.
Though the thought of "I'll be back" as a presidential slogan scares the bajesus out of me. That would be proof that the machines are coming and I don't like that thought a whole l
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very bad summary (Score:4, Interesting)
But that all went away when it the article made it clear that all that found was the chasis for the data recorder, and none of the actual black boxes, i.e. crash survivable memory units, have in fact been seen or recovered.
The Robot found it missing? (Score:2)
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I'm confused. Was the flight data recorder was found, brought to the surface, opened and the memory module was missing (ie not installed), or was the memory module a separate piece of equipment that connects to the flight data recorder and could simply be covered up by other wreckage in the debris field.
The memory module is a unit mounted in the flight recorder and it's clearly missing in the pictures sent back from the sea bed. As I mentioned above, the flight data recorder chassis looks to have bent enough to break the memory unit away from its mounting points, mostly likely when the plane hit the sea. In that case it should be somewhere in the debris field, but probably some distance from the rest of the unit due to differences in shape and density.
I believe it's basically an orange cylinder, so it shou
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What if the seabed is orange too?
Then you may be screwed :).
In normal circumstances you'd find it using the pinger signal, but that wasn't detected during the initial search and the battery died a long time ago (it was later detected in an offline analysis of the acoustic data recorded during that search, but that couldn't give an accurate position).
Wow, I think you've nailed it, big guy! (Score:2)
On a more serious note, though, recall that it was malware which brought down a Spanish airliner around that same timeframe. The malware interfered with the diagostic warning systems of the avionics systems (occupired same memory vec
Obvious answer: (Score:2)
The space aliens that shot it down got to it first.
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They weren't shot down, they crashed into the alien's flying saucer. Because the aliens didn't want their presence to be known they pried the memory thingy out of the black box. The saucer was unharmed BTW.
Upgrade! (Score:2)
I've wondered for some time why planes don't decentralise this a bit.
For example, stick a 1cc little cube with an accelerometer, gyro, and some flash memory into all of the electrically operated emergency lights.
All it does issit there and log accelleration, gyro readings, and temperature to flash, and rewrites after a few weeks.
This nowadays takes truly modest amounts of power and volume.
Engines generally survive - stick a few dozen in there.
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Better yet, why don't they just stream the information continuously to a satellite... yeah it costs money - now how much does an Airbus at the bottom of the ocean cost again?
It isn't just the cost. It is:
Cost(of crash) x Probability(of crash) + Value(of crash data) x Probability(of crash)
+ Cost(of normal Ops) x (1-Probability(of crash)) + Value(of normal data) x (1-Probability(of crash))
That is almost certainly a negative number most of the time. Airlines hate to lose money therefore it isn't done
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It would be interesting if they could add a system that start send all data vie satellite when an emergency is detected.
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Pilots want not to be killed while flying a plane. Most I know would prefer to know about a lurking flaw or situation that could kill them. One in particular flies the A330. Aircraft manufactures don't like to have their planes go down and have people reject their product. The reason it hasn't been done is because it's expensive -- that's it.
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What purpose would that serve?
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Engines survive because they aren't composed of soft materials, like a bunch of 1cc cubes of electronic devices. Also, the engines are made of resistant materials because one of them disintegrating in-flight would be a major hazard.
But you could choose another part of the plane to put those sensors. I guess the reasons they aren't used are historical (electronics was expensive just a while ago) and because you can deduce the acceleration and temperature of most of the debris of an accident just by looking a
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I'm not quite meaning make it a proper flight recorder, just a basic system.
Acceleration is easy - on a small object, a 2 gram flight recorder has a 'weight' of 7Kg or so.
The idea would be that these would be pretty much scattered throughout the structure in known places.
For example - it's rare that none of the engines ever get found, so scatter a dozen in each engine, ...
but that's his point: the FAA design is stupid (Score:2)
an acceleration of 3400 g (33 km/s) for 6.5 milliseconds. This is roughly equivalent to an impact velocity of 270 knots (310 mph) and a deceleration or crushing distance of 450 cm. Additionally, there are requirements for penetration resistance, static crush, high and low temperature fires, deep sea pressure, sea water immersion, and fluid immersion. [...] big enough to show up on sonar and have an acoustic and visual beacon for 30 days.
This is why the system is so bulky/heavy/expensive that it wasn't practical to embed one in every major aircraft component. The vertical tail piece was found days after the crash, floating on the ocean, but didn't contain any data. FAIL. We've now found the a main landing gear part, big enough to hold data in the support tube and very likely to be separated from any fire, but again it doesn't contain anything.
If the FAA was designing Google's datacenter, they'd use one supercomputer. They'd load it up with
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Surely you realize the FAA doesn't design aircraft or data recorders, yes?
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The FAA designs requirements that have to be met. All aircraft must meet the requirements, but there is little incentive to go beyond.
I suppose you could argue that "campaign contributions" (bribes) allow industry to supply the designs. Aside from that though, the FAA does more-or-less design aircraft and data recorders. It's indirect, via the mandated requirements that must be met.
The FAA does not demand data recorder redundancy. They do demand various durability features. They get what they demand, seldom
They only found the "chassis" of the FDR (Score:4, Interesting)
To The Cloud! (Score:3)
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EC2 [amazon.com] ?
Well, part of it is (Score:2)
While probably meant as a joke, this is a work in progress and this flight in fact as far as I know did send some messages home before the crash.
But we are forgetting that aircraft are VERY old things. Some of the aircraft you fly in are themselves older then the modern internet and might well have been designed before even the foundations of the internet were laid down.
Even so called modern aircraft are quite old and the aviation industry is not for one for rapid chance. See McDonald Douglas building the D
So a sea creature...? (Score:2)
So some sea critter ate the memory chips, specifically? This reminds me of a story about the fish kids in ocean schools: "I can't turn in my homework... I put it on a memory stick and the octopus ate it!"
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The thought is that it is too large/sturdy to be of interest. It also sounds like it must be pretty heavy.
Re:Because (Score:4, Funny)
I'm sure damaged blackboxes happen all the time—for those who don't feel like RTFAing, it looks pretty beaten up in the photo, and they've got submersibles scouring a rather large region for more pieces still. (The summary's habit of using the word "part" is kind of adorable, in a Simple English Wikipedia sort of way. What is a memory part, anyway? Is this specialized manufacturing jargon (i.e. part numbers) or just weird writing?)
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If you want to troll, it is style-less to do so under a secondary pseudonym.
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Were you trolling, or making fun of conspiracy nutters? Making fun of those wackos was my first assumption.
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Making fun!
Just because they control the world's reserve currencies through banking, forced income taxes on the people of all developed nations and manipulate the markets of the world, doesn't mean they lurk behind every unexplained phenomenon!
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Genius. I feel like we could be witnessing the return of Meept here.
Hello, Ahmed! (Score:2)
Say, how many petrodollars did the 137 Slashdot ID cost?
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The fact that "style" can be elevated to the level of having "principles" is exactly what's wrong in the world.
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Or... a pathology.
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Surely they refer to a SSD, which would then be "storage", not "memory". But it's usually the OEM at fault for this sort of silliness. "Storage" and "memory" get used interchangeably in a surprising amount of ads and brichures.
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It seems the Airbus A330 uses either a SSD or tape for storage. They also have a "Quick Access Recorder".
I only found this, because I was under the impression that most aircraft used two FDRs, once in the front, one in the rear, to help assure survival of the data in the event of a nasty catastrophic incident (i.e., very hot fire on part of an aircraft that has broken up upon intersection of the flight path and the surrounding terrain). It appears that is a mistaken belief.
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Nope. Two, yes, but one is the CVR and one is the FDR. Both are at the rear if I'm not mistaken. That is ordinarily the best place for them. Fire does not appear to ordinarily be that big of a problem. The QAR I believe is optional -- don't really know -- but I do know that it is not crash proof.
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If I remember right, my mistaken belief on the location of the FDR(s) was from a few 1980's news reports... So, a bit dated. Back then, the news was filled with them, and they always had "experts" who would babble on about anything, to fill the airtime.
When I fly, I remember the statistics that I have gathered from flights I've been on. 75% take off on time. 98% have the expected flight duration, and 100% have landed in one piece. Screw the FDR, I want the plane to land in one piece (*AND* ge [youtube.com]
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One of my favorite quotes is...
"Never underestimate the power of human stupidity."
- Robert A. Heinlein
When flying, I do pay attention to where the exits are. I also go beyond that, and look at where my "assets" are in the event of an emergency. Who looks strong and can follow instructions. It doesn't matter if it's a hijacking, or a plane crash, you will likely need those assets. And ya, the guy who feels it's appropriate to put his laptop on his lap, and bag at his feet, it's st
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Looks like someone forgot to post anonymously. Given your low UID, is it possible that you are the Methusalah [memory-alpha.org] of trolls? Traveling from one era to the next, trusty bag of tired memes in one hand, bucket of spam in the other?
You know, I don't get many opportunities on this site to do this, but.... NERD!!
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With a UID that low, if he was going to Troll, you'd be left wondering what the hell hominy porridge has to do with ex-vegan stars of melodramatic ballet movies...
Re:Because (Score:4, Informative)
This post provides some interesting information:
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/5129859/1/#2 [airliners.net]
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a large part is a bit like big portion, well that's what she said.
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To be fair, though, TOS was in the business of ripping off things already. Consider Balance of Terror [memory-alpha.org], which proudly combines a classic WW2 U-boat terror movie with the Roman Empire... IN SPACE!
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Shame about SGU, I liked this particular two parter, even with its kludges.
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the jews got there first.
Good sir, I believe you intended to say: "derp DA jOOZ did 911 da mOOn LAnding was a Soundstage on marz"
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Pull my finger...
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HAHAHahaha.. man There needs to be a youtube Fring Spoof called "The Bishop of Durham"
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I dislike the Israel thing as much as anyone, but that's like equating Christians with the USA. The USA is not a Christian nation and not all of the USA is Christian. While that is less true of Israel, it is certainly true that all Jews are not Israeli and don't all necessarily approve of their actions. I know you're trolling, but perhaps someone else hasn't thought this through also.
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Logically: ignorant african immigrants should also be allowed to mutilate their daughters. Same shit, really.
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Same shit, really.
No it's not.
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Because the FDR is just part of the unit:
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45996000/gif/_45996239_black_box_loc_v2_466_v2.gif [bbc.co.uk]
Also, a floating FDR would be a nightmare. In the event of an ocean crash do you *really* want the FDR to drift off on the currents? It could end up anywhere - oceans are vast, even with a locator beacon broadcasting its position it's hard enough to find in a reasonably well defined debris field on the seabed.
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I wonder if the memory module by itself floats. The chassis sank (because its a metal box that can fill with water). But if the module remains watertight, it could be washing up on a New Jersey beach as we speak.
No Snookie. Its not a bottle of booze. Please don't open it.