Automatic Deployable Flight Recorder’ (ADFR) 

The new ‘Automatic Deployable Flight Recorder’ (ADFR) will be fitted to all long-range Airbus aircraft starting from 2019. The Airbus has teamed up with avionics specialist L3 Aviation Products as well as DRS Leonardo to develop the black box, which will be fitted on the A350XWB first, beginning in late 2019, and follow on AA380s, A330s and A320LRs, too.

L3 will design and manufacture the lighter and more compact fixed, crash-protected cockpit voice and data recorder (CVDR), which will be able to record up to 25 hour of voice and flight data, an increase from the current 2 hour of voice recording.

The ADFR will be fitted at the rear of the aircraft and is designed to deploy automatically via a preloaded spring system in the event of water submersion or significant structural deformation of the aircraft. It can float and is aimed at long-range aircraft that fly for extended periods over water or in remote areas.

The crash-protected ADFR can also store up to 25 hour of recorded cockpit voice and flight data. It is fitted with an emergency locator transmitter to help rescuers locate and recover it rapidly.

Airbus said two of the new fixed CVDRs will be deployed on shorter-range A320 airliners. “This is about Airbus’s wish to go beyond the regulations to improve the chances of recovering data in the event of an accident,” Airbus Product Safety Enhancement Manager Géraldine Vallée told journalists at a briefing in Paris on June 15.