Recorders Readout

Recorders Readout

 

Civil Aviation Safety Regulations (CASR) of Indonesia Ministry of Transportion Part 121.344 and Part 135.329 requires that each aircraft is suitably equipped with flight data recorder (FDR). In accordance with the Decree of the Minister of Transportation No. 43 Year 2009, FDR has to be readout every year to ensure that the parameters recorded on the FDR comply DGCA regulations.

The parts of the FDR readout are download and analysis. In the download process, the data reading from FDR memory is performed then it is written back in the form of file that can be opened by the PC/Laptop. File obtained from the download process is still a binary file, can not be interpreted directly by the aircraft engineer. Therefore we need further analysis process.

After obtaining FDR file from the download process, then analysis is performed to generate engineering data. Engineering data provides an overview of all the aircraft behavior recorded in the FDR. The process of FDR data analysis needs software tools and understanding of aircraft, aircraft systems, and the principles of aircraft data acquisition. Each aircraft can have a different data acquisition systems configuration although the type of the aircraft, acquisition components and storage of the data are identical. Configuration of the data acquisition system is the basis for conversion of binary data into FDR engineering data. This configuration is usually known as the dataframe. Engineering data is analyzed to determine whether the parameters recorded in the FDR comply/ in accordance with the DGCA requirements set out in CASR Part 121.344 and CASR Part 135.329.

We provide FDR download and analysis services. We are able to download the FDRs listed in Table 1. For the analysis, it can be said that we can do the analysis for all types of flight data acquisition and recording system. If the aircraft does not have dataframe documents, we are willing to help to create such document by other supporting documents, even with a ground test on the aircraft.

Flight Data Recorder (FDR) Download

Format of the data stored in FDR follows the format of ARINC 573 or ARINC 717. This format is a standard format that applies to aircraft FDR. Although FDR data format is the standard format, but the detailed method of data storage and retrieval (extract) to and from memory is specific per FDR manufacturer and part number. We have developed and distributed various FDR downloaders from several manufacturers. The following is list of FDR downloaders we developed and distributed:

FDR_caplist_aering

Table 1. FDR Download Tools List

Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) Download

CASR Part 135.327 and CASR Part 121.359 require that the aircraft is equipped with a CVR. As well as FDR, Ministerial Decree No. 43 Year 2009, requires that CVR is readout once every year. We provide CVR download service as stated above, on the CVR Downloader. We also provide the CVR file analysis service for all types of CVR data.

CVR memory can be either tape or solid state. For now, AERING can extract four sound channels from the following CVRs:
• Honeywell CVR Model H6005, P/N: 980-6005-XXX
• L3/Fairchild CVR Model A100 P/N: GA100-000
• Penny & Giles CVFDR Model 900/D51506

Flight Data Analysis

The result of FDR download is a raw binary data that needs to be processed further in order to obtain the engineering meaning understood by aviation people. We provide a software tool for the analysis of FDR raw data into engineering data which is the data source in flight data analysis. We develop AFDA which stands AERING Flight Data Analyzer. Here we give an example graph of the output of the AFDA.

Figure 1 Example of Graphic Output of AFDA