Flight Data Recorder F1000 ("Black Box") (USA)

This object is not part of the Cooper Hewitt's permanent collection. It was able to spend time at the museum on loan from National Air & Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution as part of Tools: Extending Our Reach.

Investigators require accurate flight data to determine the causes of aircraft accidents. The now-obsolete F1000 Solid State Flight Data Recorder (SSFDR) could register between six and twenty data parameters over twenty-five hours, while surviving impacts of 100 G, temperatures of 1,000° C (1,832° F), and immersion in seawater for up to thirty days. The minimum data it recorded included altitude, airspeed, heading, vertical acceleration, time, and the duration of radio transmission. The F1000, the first certified SSFDR, was usually paired with a unit that recorded cockpit voice communications. Such devices are often called "black boxes," because older aircraft electronic equipment was painted black to radiate excess heat. Today, they are painted orange and equipped with a radio beacon to make them easier to find at crash sites. Today’s FDRs are more crashworthy and can record hundreds of parameters; in addition, the flight-data and cockpit voice recorders are now sometimes combined into a single unit.

This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition Tools: Extending Our Reach.