What is a planes lack box?
Wow, $10 says not one of the previous answers have ever been near the avionics bay of a commercial airplane. So, to dispel the ‘swags’ and guesses being made here, here is the real answer. In aviation, we call everything in the avionics bay a “black box” simply because they are literally black boxes mounted in racks that perform various functions. The media however, being their usually uninformed selves dubbed the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder (two separate units) the “black box”. In reality these two units perform different and very distinct functions. The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) records the cockpit sounds in a continuous 30 minute loop. Contrary to opinion, its not there just to hear what the pilots are saying (or anyone else that happens to be on the flight deck) one can also hear any warning sounds/horns or the absence of them. The other “black box” is the flight data recorder (FDR or DFDR if it is digital). This unit’s function is to record the aircraft’
