Now Playing: How a Flight Data Recorder Works
  • Description:  Bill opens up a vintage black box from a Delta airlines jetliner. He describes how the box withstands high temperatures and crash velocities because it is made from Inconel A superalloy steels that is used in furnaces and others extreme environments. The flight data recorder he shows is a Sundstrand FA-542 and was likely used on a DC-9 in the 1970s, although it could have been used as late as 1988 on a Boeing 727.

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