Why arent planes made out of the same stuff black boxes are made out of?

Question

It would be common sense to make a plane out of the black box material, (the black box being in-destructable) That way if the plane crashed or collided with another object, the plane wouldnt break and the people would only suffer whiplash. (Better than Dying).

Answer 1

Flight Data Recorders (FDR's) and Cockpit Voice Recorders (Flight Data Recorders (FDR's) and Cockpit Voice Recorders (CVR's) are not indestructible. They're tough, but they are routinely damaged or destroyed during a severe crash.

The "indestructible" image they hold is an urban legend and a product of the imagination of the media. (Remember the "unsinkable" Titanic?)

Secondly, they're painted bright orange...in order that the crash investigators can more easily locate them in the wreckage. Nobody in the aviation industry calls them "black boxes." We call them FDR's or CVR's. Again, the "black box" moniker is a media invention.

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviation/cvr_sidefront_lg.jpg

http://www.meib.org/images/9911_datarecorder.jpg

http://news.com.com/i/ne/p/photo/flight5966_400x301.jpg

http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/black-box-ntsb-990a.jpg

Answer 2

Because of the very heavy construction of the black box, it does not crush as "easily" as the plane does. Electronic components are also made to withstand the extreme shock of a crash (up to a certain point). That being said, if a plane was to be made of the same stuff, it would be extremely heavy and most likely not able to fly. Should you be able to successfully make a plane from it and the plane were to crash, most of the impact would not be taken by the plane, but rather by the ground and the contents of the plane. Basically, the massive amount of kinetic energy released during a crash would certainly kill everyone on the plane, thereby having a potentially survivable plane (although the black box does not necessarily fair all that well), but everyone inside dead. All that being said, it is my understanding that most people in a crash die from fire, not the initial impact - something I heard a while back.

Answer 3

It's not the material of the black box that makes it so sturdy. It's the structural design. And you can't make a structural design as sturdy as the black box, and the size of an airplane, and hope that it's going to fly.

Also, even if you did make the plane indestructible, you would probably cause very great injuries to the passengers. Automobiles have crumple zones so that when they have collisions, the energy of the collision is directed into the steel of the frame. If they did not, the energy would go into the passengers. The same logic applies for a plane crash, except at 500 mph. If you made the plane indestructible, the energy would be transferred to the passengers who are strapped into their seatbelts, and you would probably cause far greater injuries than just whiplash. Most likely they suffer severe internal injuries from internal bruising to their organs (caused by the seatbelts).

Incidentally, black boxes aren't black. They're painted brightly so that it's easy to find among the wreckage.

Answer 4

No it wouldn't. They're not indestructible -- the outside of the box is often damaged or destroyed in a crash. The innermost workings are protected by the box and the crushability of the aircraft itself.

Most importantly, it's not the crash that kills, it's the sudden deceleration. Even if the plane were perfectly intact, most of the passengers would be dead anyway due to the extreme forces involved. A sudden stop from 500 MPH would cause the seatbelts to slice the passengers in two much like a cheese slicer. A 500 MPH "whiplash" would snap your head off. Hardly a surviable injury. So, now we have this nice in-tact airplane full of body parts; heads rolling around on the floor, etc. Nice visual, huh?

Answer 5

The Black Box is made of solid steel. If the plane is made of the same material then every thing is safe including passengers. But there is a small problem to this. The plane won't take off at all because of weight. Now you understand why planes are made with Dur aluminum a light weighted metal.

Answer 6

first off, the plane would be flightless due to weight.

second off, the plane wouldnt be indestructable by any means. hitting lets say a mountain with a quarter million pound object moving at like 700 MPH wouldnt not destroy everything.

and you get whiplash in a minor car accident going from about 30-0 in prob 10 feet. You get A: thrown THROUGH the seatbelts (meaning cut into pieces assuming they hold), B: your head dislodged from your neck (assuming your body holds), or the blunt force trauma of accelerating from 700-0 mph in about 4 inches (your seatbelt slack), if the plane was made of that stuff and held together like you think it would (which it wouldnt). THat is roughly 49200 Gs.

Answer 7

Because that material is too heavy and dense, the plane would weigh a lot more, would require more money to operate and besides, it isn't just the crash people can die from when the plane falls, the impact of the crash, even if the shell of the plane remains intact will still end up killing the passengers.

Answer 8

The material used to build black boxes are harder than the plane itself, but are more dense. If planes are made usug the material used to make black boxes, the plane would hardly fly without massive thrust that is, would require a lot of fuel.

Answer 9

If Planes where made out of the same material that the black boxes are made of, they would weigh to much to fly. And then if you could get them in the air, they would cost to much to operate due to the amount of fuel to get them off the ground.

Answer 10

For the same reason cars are now designed to crumple like tin foil in an accident. Years ago cars were made out of harder metal and the passengers took the brunt of the impact in a collision.