There was a famous case a couple of years ago when a SEP ditched in the North Sea after reporting engine trouble. The wreckage WAS salvaged and the FADEC logs could still be read out! Much to the regret of the owner/pilot…
A rather daring case of insurance fraud, I must say!
Coming back to this old topic… it does make me wonder why there has been no pressure to make a “GA FDR/CVR”.
Technically it’s not hard, and especially recording cockpit voice would be easy because the intercom connection is trivial.
It would need to be waterproof and fireproof so not just a repackaged smartphone etc.
Is there really nothing to be gained for accident investigations? Most accident reports I have read are so obviously struggling to wrap up speculation and conjecture into fancy language.
For the pilot/operator/owner I see only disadvantages: added weight and complexity (though not much) but above all: if things go wrong due to pilot error, a FDR will add proof. Who is going to add that, voluntarily? If any pressure comes, it might be from insurers rather than from authorities.
G1000 has the ability to log quite a lot of data with 1 Hz frequency in CSV format to one of the SD cards.
Yes, my Avidyne EX5000 Mfd does that too. Every month or so i download the data on a USB stick.It contains a lot of engine data, the flight track, altitudes. You can actually upload the data to Google Earth and repeat the flight with the Autopilot feature of G.E.
Fire- and water-proof, and cockpit voice?
Neil – I don’t think you can connect aircraft data to these portable devices. There is not much of a problem just recording video – I eventually converged on the Roadhawk as the only product which would genuinely record the “last X hrs” of a flight (all the webcams e.g. go-pro cannot do “continuous loop” mode) but got rid of it because it didn’t have enough resolution to show the whole panel.
Peter wrote:
The biggest challenge in making an FDR is to get one’s hands on the data. It is “technically” illegal to connect say an ARINC429 or RS232 to bluetooth transmitter to the output of a certified GPS, airdata computer, etc.
Why, this is what we designed for some Slingsby aircraft, see the video It won’t embedded as a movie clip however.
http://wps.selfly.nl/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Spin.mp4
Sensors are definitly the hardest part. In this design we have evualated several IMU designs. You could also see this on the Panthere spinning video where the display doesn’t show what actually happens. You will not be able to do this based on telephone sensors.
Jan_Olieslagers wrote:
Who is going to add that, voluntarily?
We have been in discussion with some flight clubs. Combined with some partners It can grade the pilot’s. Just like with engine monitoring it will easily be visible is your aircraft is used in a way you wouldn’t want it to be used as owner. Insurance companies also had a look into it, and would consider lowering their fees.
Peter wrote:
Fire- and water-proof, and cockpit voice?
The title reads GA FDR, so Flight Data Recorder…
And even though not especially fire- or crash proof, it seems to be that quite often the nonvolatile memory is still readable after a crash. So why make it expensive for the odd case where the NVM is destroyed as well?
Jesse wrote:
You will not be able to do this based on telephone sensors.
Why not? Modern commercial gyro sensors have 3 axes and 400Hz output frequency, provided the algorithm that follows doesn’t have guimbal locking or other issues, they are perfectly capable to record such a motion. And their higher bias instability compared to a mechanical gyro or higher cost IMU sensors don’t seem to be much of an issue in this type of motion…
I suspect what you found is more inadequate algorithms than sensor issues 
