Why do people call the flight recorder in an aircraft the “Black Box”?
“Black box” is a generic term that describes a unit (usually electronic) that performs a required function, but where the internal mechanism is not pertinent. As such, there are scores of “black boxes” in a modern aircraft, handling things like radar functions, autopilot, stability augmentation, and so on. When flight data recording was proposed in the 1950’s, the requirement was to record flight parameters that would aid in determining what happened; but the method was not specified (and still is not). Methods of recording ranged from continuous loop magnetic wire and tape to stylus engraving of a metallic foil (this later approach probably did not have much reliability…). Today, most units rely on solid state memory. The name “black box” results from one of the engineer developing such units talking with a journalist, stating that those would be “wonderful black box” (at that time, the unit itself was called “the red egg”, a more apt description of its color and form), and the jour
