The Black Box, that one little tape recorder within all the planes that we fly in, is getting redone. The Federal Aviation Administration is finally listening to the requests of the National Transportation Safety Board and raising the bar for black box (well actually orange box) performance. Traditional black boxes were composed of a single roll of magnetic tape that would record approximately a half hour of the plane’s final moments. These black boxes can survive crashes on land and in the sea, are equipped with a transmitter and cost about $15,000 each.

Now the Federal Aviation Administration has dealt with the black boxes in this state and has refused for years to upgrade. Finally though, they have agreed to update their systems. By 2012, every plane will have been advanced in some way. Some of these black box improvements will be an extended two hour voice recording time and a solid state memory system. The solid state system will give the black box more durability, as the microchips within a solid state box are much harder to damage than the magnetic tape boxes. In addition to the 2 hour voice recorder, the new black boxes will also be required to store the last 25 hours of flight data (altitude, fuel levels, etc.).

This black box revamp gives me new faith in the airline industry. I have always enjoyed flying, but as more and more airlines have become bankrupt I have been slowly flying less and less. If the airline industry can make these costly improvements and publicize them, I think they will increase the trust the American people have in them exponentially.