iPod as FDR?

A Vero Beach, Fla.-based light aircraft manufacturer is bringing iPod into the cockpit, turning Apple Computers’ ubiquitous music player into a flight data recorder (FDR). Lo Presti SpeedMerchants, maker of the Fury piston aircraft, said it is repurposing the technology to use it as a potential replacement for the “black box,” capable of capturing engine functions, GPS functions, two-way cockpit conversations and communications with air traffic control. “All an iPod is is a digital data recorder,” said RJ Siegel, LoPresti’s vice president of operations. “It makes perfect sense” to use it in this way. “This is a watershed technology,” he added. Siegel, a former Apple executive who still consults for the company, said he anticipates it could be possible to store a person’s entire aviation life on one iPod. He envisions a 160 GB iPod capable of storing up to 6,000 hours of flight data. “If the kids can’t break it dropping it on the ground, it’s unlikely that it’ll get damaged bouncing around on an airplane,” Siegel told Avionics. Siegel was on the original Macintosh design team and managed a spectrum of multimillion-dollar projects. Siegel said the idea was originally envisioned for the light aircraft market, but he said he’s been seeing interest in the concept from “five or six” corporate and business jet companies, which he declined to identify.