Realizing the potential of digital flight data recording

Digital technology has the potential to greatly enhance the accuracy and manageability of flight data recording while significantly lowering the cost. The new recording specification is explaining the way airborne telemetry data is captured, recorded, analyzed, and distributed by standardizing the digital data-recording directory and data format for random-access digital media. The main advantage of the new digital standard is the capability to download a recorded media cartridge from any vendor's flight recorder via a standard interface to a PC and analyze it with a compliant software package from any other vendor. Digital technology also enables copying of data captured as bits and bytes onto a variety of low-cost media including CDs and DVDs and sending over data networks and the Internet.