Multipurpose aircraft monitoring with a smart recorder

This paper describes a microprocessor-based flight recorder the 'Smart Recorder' - which was developed and installed on a King Air aircraft used for commercial charter service. The recorder is used as a research tool for developing monitoring strategies and processing algorithms to: (1) characterize the typical flight environment encountered by the host aircraft, (2) develop technology for automated engine trend monitoring, and (3) implement a crash recording capability. Initially the recorder was used as an adaptive data acquisition system, monitoring engine sensors and flight instruments and then modifying its data acquisition in response to the perceived aircraft situation. Data collected in this manner were stored in a removable bubble memory and subsequently analyzed in the laboratory. Later, on-board processing was implemented to better utilize the available storage capacity.