Originally Posted by
MANman
http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/articl...nes-flight-370
Rolls Royce, manufacturer of the two Trent 800 engines supplied to the missing jetliner, confirmed it tracks all of its engines at its control centre in Britain.
Asked if Rolls Royce would know if there was a change in power, a spokeswoman for Rolls Royce replied: “We know first hand if there is something wrong with the engine, yes... any kind of problem.”
Ok. Just so we are clear on this monitoring etc etc........
The Boeing 777 has a system called AIMS or Airline Information Monitoring System. It is a server for want if a better description and the heart of the avionics/I.T. Set up.
The AIMS has two cabinets which do the calculations for other avionic systems. To do these calculations, each AIMS cabinet has these:
- A cabinet chassis - Four Input/output modules (IOM) - Four Core processor modules (CPM).
The IOMs and the CPMs are in the cabinet chassis. The chassis also has a backplane data bus and a backplane power bus to distribute data and power to the IOMs and CPMs.
The input/output module (IOM) transfers data between the software functions in the AIMS CPMs and external signal sources.
The CPMs supply the software and hardware to do the calculations for several avionic systems. The software is called functions. To keep a necessary separation between the functions, each function is partitioned. The partitions permit multiple functions to use the same hardware and be in the same CPM.
These are the four types of CPMs:
- CPM/Communication (CPM/Comm) - CPM/Airplane condition monitoring function (CPM/ ACMF) (left AIMS cabinet only) - CPM/Basic (right AIMS cabinet only) - CPM/Graphics generator (CPM/GG).
These are the software functions in the CPM/Comm:
- Data conversion gateway function (DCGF) - Central maintenance computing function (CMCF) - Data communication management function (DCMF) - Flight deck communication function (FDCF) - Quick access recorder function (QARF) - Digital flight data acquisition function (DFDAF).
These are the components of the airplane condition monitoring system:
- Airplane condition monitoring function (ACMF) - Quick access recorder function (QARF).
The only output of AIMS and ACARS on non SATCOM fitted aircraft is via the Right and Centre VHF COMMS antenna which are both situated on the underside on the aircraft.
Almost all of the AIMS servers and equipment are located in the MEC or Main Equipment Centre in the forward underside of the aircraft.
Now brace yourselves kids but here comes the shocker.........the FDR/CVR are not in the tail. The are at the rear and if you knew where to look you could even admire them from the passenger cabin. That said they are found towards the back of the cabin, but not labeled and well concealed behind fancy, aesthetically pleasing plastic that makes up the walls and ceiling of modern aircraft interior design. The QAR or Quick Access Recorder that records fewer parameters than the FDR is located separately and can download data on a separate data transmitting mode and tends to do so when in contact with a ground station after engine shutdown and weight on wheels via a LAN network (airline option thus pricey) or via a download onto and engineers computer and the trusty email/USB data transfer to the Flt Safety Dept of said airline.
My point. The Engines do not have their own reporting system. They do so through existing aircraft avionics architecture. In the case of the 777 this is AIMS and the ACMS function. Should the aircraft be unable for what ever reason to communicate with the outside world via AIMS and ACARS then the aircraft may have registered several cautions and/or warnings, but only the crew will ever know about them. So if MAS did not receive anything, neither did RR in Derby.