How come those boxed in planes are called black boxes?

Question

should they be called African American Boxes?

Answer 1

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AsIxN.o.EoVIhEHnjcefE3UjzKIX?qid=20060824225656AAn6Hxq
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Apg43eRnNHjdPK.SA0EYl8AjzKIX?qid=20061031145129AALptem
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AkynVhYyJOZdWk3MAoKbs3wjzKIX?qid=20061017061511AAaanbk
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Aq93i04BL.4GgnxIWKrLn6IjzKIX?qid=20061206105103AAjnOFk
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ar2CGXAdsazfanzylB45nSAjzKIX?qid=20060702192922AAEJkYe
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Av4cBu.EDxeL7kjuZVxOxHQjzKIX?qid=20060719060416AAem6z0
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http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AueVOq.i7kxHLOGCpw.19KojzKIX?qid=20070110064857AARooCr
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http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AhCA5bUp7VJGzM.OsZb8.6EjzKIX?qid=20060608104643AACxZl1

Answer 2

The term Black Box is used casually, often by journalists, to refer to a collection of several different devices used in transportation. The flight data recorder or cockpit voice recorder in aircraft, the event recorder in railway diesel locomotives, and other recording devices in various vehicles may be included. There is little similarity between these units and they are designed and installed on the basis of different regulatory requirements. In industry the more specific terms are used. In aviation these devices are known as flight recorders and in automobiles they are known as Event Data Recorders.

These devices are, contrary to their popular name, most often painted a bright blaze orange to aid recovery crews in locating them quickly after an incident.

The "black box" term originated when after a meeting about the first commercial FDR, named the "Red Egg" for its colour and shape, someone commented that, "This is a wonderful black box. "

In an interview with ABC TV (Australia) George Negus Tonight :: future (Episode 14 The Black Box - broadcast 6.30pm on 08/05/2003) Dr David Warren (inventor of the Flight Data Recorder) stated "It was called black box because in the records of my meeting in London when it was first demonstrated and they were so keen, one of the people in the discussion afterwards said, "This is a wonderful black box." And a black box was a gadget box. You didn't have to understand it but it did wonderful things."

Black box is more a humorous cadigan than an accurate term, and almost never used within the flight safety industry.

Black box (systems) has long been part of professional jargon in physics or electronics for a mechanism in which the input and expected outputs are well understood but the internal operations are deliberately and completely unknown, but this has no special connection with recording devices.

A number of observational comedians have expressed their view that, because the box seems to be indestructable, the substance used to make the box should be used to make the entire airplane. However, writer Douglas Adams observed that, "...because flight recorders are made out titanium and that if you made planes out of titanium rather than aluminium they’d be far too heavy to get off the ground in the first place."

Answer 3

there is no reason as far as I know, but in reality, they are bright orange ad fire proof. They are orange so they can be found at a crash site.

Answer 4

In reality they are bright orange.

Answer 5

its really really black....i think