How it began
In 1954 David Warren, a research scientist at the Aeronautical Research Laboratories in Melbourne, proposed a device that would record flight data together with voices and other sounds in the cockpit just before a crash. He had been involved in investigating the crash of the Comet, the first jet-powered commercial airliner, and had recently seen a miniature recorder at a trade fair. His superiors showed limited interest, so he worked on a prototype in his garage on weekends. In 1957 a new manager, Tom Keeble, found 600 pounds for a professionally built prototype.
Before it existed
Accident investigators had little direct evidence of the last moments of a flight. According to accounts of Warren's work, devices that logged some flight parameters already existed, but they were single-use, carried no voice recording and were not suited to routine commercial operation. Investigators of the Comet crashes had to rely on wreckage and speculation about the cause.
How it works
The prototype built in the late 1950s recorded four hours of cockpit sound and took eight instrument readings four times a second, storing both on the same steel wire. It needed little maintenance, switched on and off with the aircraft's engines, and erased itself continuously unless there was a crash. Later flight recorders kept Warren's ideas of a rounded shape and a bright color. They are painted orange so they can be found, and are housed in the tail, where they are more likely to survive.
How it spread
The turning point came in 1958, when Sir Robert Hardingham, a former British air vice-marshal, saw the recorder during an informal visit to the laboratory. Warren and the device were soon flown to England, where the reception was encouraging, and it was also demonstrated in Canada. The English company S. Davall and Sons produced a commercial recorder. After a Fokker Friendship crashed at Mackay, Queensland, in 1960, the inquiry judge recommended recorders for all airliners, and Australia became the first country to make cockpit voice recording compulsory.
Who pushed back
Warren's 1957 paper argued that recorders should be fitted to all major aircraft and answered concerns about weight, cost, maintenance and pilot privacy. The National Museum of Australia records that it met a lack of interest and even hostility in Australia, partly because the country had few air crashes and aeronautical innovation was thought to belong to Britain and the United States. United States authorities declined an offer from the Australian Embassy to demonstrate the device.
Where it stands today
Flight recorders are now mandatory on all major aircraft around the world. The Australian Government received 1,000 pounds for the laboratory's intellectual property and otherwise made no profit from the invention. Warren was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2002 and died in 2010. The Powerhouse Museum in Sydney holds an original prototype made by Warren and the Davall company.
