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The ability to implement redundancy of the data makes this invention a very

viable solution because the data is now "online" and can be readily accessed in

emergency situations and to perform an investigation or to understand what caused

a aircraft to crash even long before the actual physical recorders are found. The

invention specification is also consistent with NTSB proposed requirements.

XVIII. PRIOR ART - PRIOR AND RECENT PATENTS
A "Coding Apparatus For Flight Recorders And The Like" was invented and

patented in the United States by James J. "Crash" Ryan, a professor of mechanical

engineering at the University of Minnesota from 1931 to 1963; U.S. Patent 2,959,459

was filed in August 1953 and approved on November 8, 1960. Ryan, the inventor of

the retractable seat belt now required in automobiles, began working on the idea of a

flight recorder in 1946, and invented the device in response to the 1948 request from

the Civil Aeronautics Board for development of a flight recorder as a means of

accumulating data that could be used to get information useful in arriving at

operating procedures designed to reduce air mishaps. The original device was

known as the "General Mills flight recorder". This invention was one of the earliest

forms of the art.

A "Cockpit Sound Recorder" (CSR) was independently invented and patented

by Edmund A. Boniface, Jr., an aeronautical engineer of Lockheed Aircraft

Corporation and originally filed with the U.S. Patent Office United States Patent

3,327,067; on February 2, 1961 as an "Aircraft Cockpit Sound Recorder"; the 1961

invention was viewed by some as an "invasion of privacy". Subsequently Boniface

filed again on February 4, 1963 for a "Cockpit Sound Recorder" with the addition of a

spring loaded switch which allowed the pilot to erase the audio/sound tape recording

at the conclusion of a safe flight and landing.

Docket No. : Ticket 2180/215 14