eli5 Why can’t black boxes in Aeroplanes update data to a cloud throughout a flight or after a crash has occured? why do we need to find the physical box?
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“Black boxes” have been mandated in planes for 30-40 years before satellite comms technology has been readily- and relatively-cheaply available.
Many planes do upload telemetry data now (mostly for engine performance-monitoring, pre-emptive servicing etc), but I’ve no idea whether it’s as complete (in terms of number/type of instruments) or as high-resolution (time-updates) as black-box. They probably don’t upload the cockpit voice.
Remember it’s only relatively recently that we’ve had low cost high bandwidth satellite data-comms… and rules and regs for airlines evolve over decades.
There’s also a possibility that comms with satellites could be lost, e.g. if deliberately jammed by military or solar-storm events. Also if systems started to fail on a plane, in an unfolding drama, is it likely you’d lose satellite comms (or power to that system) sometime before the final crash? The black box is very very reliable.
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