Invention Might Have Saved Flight AF447

Electronics News (blog):

… in the case of Air France flight AF447, some investigators suggested the pitot tubes were blocked by ice crystals just after the plane entered an area of stormy weather in mid-Atlantic. Starved of accurate airspeed data, the autopilot handed control back to the unprepared pilots and disaster ensued.

The Saint has taken the time to recount this sad story to highlight the potentially huge importance of an invention developed by University of New South Wales (UNSW) engineers in Canberra and reported in Electronics News this week.

The UNSW device is not designed to do away with the pitot tube entirely, but is intended to offer back-up readings should the tube stop functioning due to a blockage. The current back up system is based on the Global Positioning System (GPS) that, according the news item, also tends to be unreliable in the very storm conditions that are likely to block a pitot tube.

The Australian laser system computes velocity by measuring the Doppler shift of light absorbed by oxygen molecules as the plane moves through the air. There are no moving parts in the airstream and the associated electronics are inside the cabin where the temperature can be controlled…

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