Do aircraft have cameras ?

I had an aircraft related question , so thought I'd put the question to the resident experts, while I search around.

After watching a re-telling of the JAL Flight 1628 incident over Alaska,
I found myself wondering why aircraft don't have on board cameras. (or if any do.)

(Of course I'm taking into account military fighter gun cams.)

Is it due to costs? perceived uselessness? tech or quality issues? or am I just ill-informed?

Seems like they (i.e. rear cams) would be useful in ground maneuvering as well.

TIA

(speeling)



[edit on 9-4-2008 by Jbird]

reply to post by Jbird

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Some commercial aircraft do (I thinking most new Airbus’s, such as Airbus A340 – A300).

I have been on 2 Airlines that have the cameras, Air Tahiti Nui and Etihad Airways – both where A340’s.

It was pretty cool, because they had 3 cameras (that you could look out), one at the front, one under the plane and one on the tail. During take off and landing and throughout the flight you could watch any of the cameras on the TV screen in the back of the seat. You just pick with camera channel you want to watch, pretty cool when landing.

Here is a you tube link, it shows someone filming out the plane window, and then they point the camera at their seat TV and you see them watching the landing from the nose camera.

Etihad Camera

Mikey

PS: It would be smart (if they don’t now do it) to have the camera footage recorded on the black box, I’m sure it would be very useful in investigations.

Mikey

Very interesting , Mikey. Cool vid , and passenger friendly, too!

Thanks for the input and link.




My thoughts exactly. Seems strange that these types of systems on aircraft, are not standard features, after so many years of crash amd incident investigation.

And they seem relatively low cost additions, without much maintenance costs.

Video requires a lot of storage space for even small amounts when compared to audio, and there is only so much physical space a black box can consume - the smaller the box, the easier it is to protect.

You can't just use higher density storage medium either, because the smaller you go, the easier it is for fire, water, stress etc to affect it due to the fact that its easier to flip smaller numbers of electrons in a group.

For the benefits, the additional issues related to video storage just aren't worth it. Audio is omni directional, video is not - the space is better used storing audio.

reply to post by RichardPrice

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Could they not set it up in a way that while the cameras are recording the through the whole flight it’s fed back to somewhere on the ground?

Is that possible? Like a live feed via satellites etc etc, and then a place on the ground records it?

Mikey


[edit on 9/4/2008 by Mikey84]

The average number of daily flights in the US is around 4,000 - there quite simply is not enough bandwidth in the airwaves to do that.

reply to post by RichardPrice

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I don't see why 4,000 planes couldn't get a signal.. But I also don't see why 4,000 planes would need the signal being broadcasted.
I haven't really thought about any of this before. I think they could easily have some cameras ready to broadcast in an emergency(I wouldn't want to be broad casted online in my seat if their wasn't an emergency, I might have to pick my nose or something. lol)

I wouldn't be surprised if they already had systems like this or even data being stored on something like a soled state drive. Might not be as durable but would probably save space for like 30 more padded layers or whatever they use.

Video could be recorded or transmit at the press of a button, a wrong turn or a dangerous altitude. I don't see why not other then taxes.

Maybe we just need to get rid of the who plane travailing idea.. I think they probably have some more advanced means of travel, planes seem kinda clunky.

Two solutions. A seperate box for video. Make the recording 10 minutes long from the camera(s). Recorder can overwrite the the older data as it proceeds.

Or provide the camera with an "Oh $#*!" button which begins the recording -- perhaps tied into the transponder so when it squawks 7700 or 7500 the recorder turns on.

Define 'an emergency'. Thats the hard part with triggered systems - defining the state in which they are to be triggered.

Handing that task off to the crew just gives them one more 'super important' thing they have to think about when an emergency situation appears - and if thats the case, if you are relying on the aircraft already being *in* the emergency to have it triggered, you just lost the prime reason for having the cameras - why did the emergency happen, why was that aircraft banking at an angle greater than 90 degrees, why was that aircraft flying at 500ft and heading straight for those mountains?

Planes do not take off and fly in concrete ways to their destination, they make 'wrong turns' or sudden altitude changes all throughout their course, and that all makes it harder to define what it would take to start an emergency system - and that is why black boxes record all the time.




1. 10 minutes is nowhere near long enough for any reasonable data recording - modern Flight Data Recorders store around 25 hours worth of data in a loop, and modern Cockpit Voice Recorders store around 2 hours of data. There are plans to mandate an increase in both of these to 72 hours each, so that damage caused by a previous crew could be detected in the event of a later emergency (eg previous crew caused a tail strike and either didn't realise or just didn't report it).

2. As above, you are relying on the crew to do something more in an emergency and you have also lost the point of the camera - why did the emergency happen. Also quite a lot of value in the CDR and FDR is when totally unsuspecting things happen, such as engine failure on take off or inability to stop on landing - in those sort of cases, you simply are not going to see any of the crew hitting the 'record me now' button.

Voice and instrument data can be easily and quickly compressed on the fly, with minimal time off storage - video is nowhere near that simple, and would spend a lot of time lagging behind as it is compressed.

Believe it or not it is extremely difficult to get good quality imagery from a video camera on board an aircraft, the military do it at great cost and even then the results can be remarkably poor; anyone who has watched an onboard camera on a commercial jet can testify to this. The flight data recorder (FDR) records sufficent information to allow an accurate plotting of all aircraft movements sufficient to negate any need for cameras. Nowadays inputting FDR data into a computer can give you a 3D model of the aircraft in flight which far exceeds the usefulness of on board footage.

The ones I have watched in my seat while flying have been excellent (Air Tahiti Nui and Eithad Airways), that was flying during, Night, Day, Rain, Sunshine and Cloud. The picture was as clear as any other channel.

Look at these ones from Emirates & Air France someone filmed, it’s pretty good quality and remember, it’s someone filming the seat TV screen, and it still comes out good.

Here

and also

Onboard Camera Landing at Night Time

and also

Another Day time one

Mikey



[edit on 10/4/2008 by Mikey84]

All new designed aircraft do.

www.gulfstream.com...

www.airliners.net...&photo_nr=22&prev_id=0844009&next_id=0614103&size=L

www.airliners.net...

It's 2008, I'm 100 percent sure we can figure out a solution to all these issues.

All we need is enough lobby behind it.

Shattered OUT...

Its simply a case of 'doesn't add anything much of a benefit to justify the cost of doing.' Audio has sufficed up until now. No one is demanding video. There has been enough chances for aviation authorities to mandate it, none have. There has however been increases in what the FDR and CVR record and store, but no video.

Did you know that every manual control in a cockpit has a different audio signature, so that they can be identified on the CVR? Done deliberately.

Well that makes plenty of sense to me and I had assumed something like that had existed, just wasn't sure.

The FAA has always been slow in accepting new technologies and implementing new ideas, about the only thing recently that the FAA made standard right off the bat was GPS due to its obvious advantages.

Shattered OUT...

Judging by the links C0bzz, and Mikey' put up (thanks guys), it seems that camera systems are indeed starting to find their way into the newer models.

Airbus, Gulfstream and Boeing 777. That Gulfstream FLIR landing footage was impressive.

Now the question becomes, are those systems just a closed link video system,
or do they have recording capabilities.

[edit on 10-4-2008 by Jbird]

Several companies are looking at what are called "Synthetic cockpits". They take information from the cameras and FLIR and project it on a screen so the pilots can see. They are not recording, the FLIR either puts the image on an MFD in the cockpit, or a Heads Up Display that is now finding their way into cockpits.

Edit to add link to Gulfstream's Synthetic Cockpit.

www.gulfstream.com...#

[edit on 4/10/2008 by Zaphod58]

Whoa! The FLIR imaging is amazing on that thing!

Shattered OUT...