A crash-protected recorder is not a rugged recorder with extra armour. It is an object whose only reason to exist is to be read after the worst has happened. Fire, shock, crushing, immersion: ED-112A and ED-155 set the bar, and the rest of the aircraft should not have to pay for it.
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THE PROBLEM
The recorder is a small part of a certified installation. Most of the difficulty is choosing the right class of protection for the aircraft, then fitting three data streams into a memory that costs weight and money per gigabyte.
ED-112A is the full standard for aeroplanes and helicopters; ED-155 is the lightweight one written for small aircraft and unmanned systems. The class you pick sets the mass, the cost and how much of the installation has to be demonstrated.
Flight data, cockpit audio and now video all compete for the same crash-survivable memory, each with a minimum duration to keep. The compression and the priority order have to be decided, not left to defaults.
On an aircraft already in service the recorder must take the buses that exist, hold up through a power loss, drive a locator beacon and offer a controlled erase, all without turning the retrofit into a redesign.
THE ANSWER
Recorders that meet the standard without becoming dead weight the rest of the time.
Sentinel ED-112 and Sentinel ED-155 as complete recorders, the Sentinel CSMU as a bare crash-survivable memory unit for integrators who build their own electronics around it.
The Sentinel acquires and records data, audio and 4K video in IRIG 106 Chapter 10 or D.T.MUX format, so the same unit serves the daily debrief and the day nobody wants to think about.
The Sentinel Remote Control puts recorder status, secure erase and event marking in the cockpit, without touching the protected unit.
D.T.MUX Viewer replays every stream in step; D.T.MUX Recover rebuilds a recording that was cut by a power loss instead of writing it off.
RELATED PRODUCTS
Two complete recorders, the memory unit on its own, and the control that goes with them.
ED-112A crash-survivable recorder — data, audio & video.
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ED-155 crash-survivable recorder — data, audio & video.
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Crash-survivable memory unit, 16–128 GB, 3 400 g shock.
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Sentinel accessory — status, erase and event marking.
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GO FURTHER
What "crash-survivable" actually means, test by test — and how a handful of numbers written in a EUROCAE document decide the shape, the mass and even the write strategy of a recorder.
Acquisition & recordingThey all record flight data onto solid-state memory in an aircraft. Beyond that they have almost nothing in common — and the differences are not technical, they are about who is asking.
Acquisition & recordingThe specification that matters is not how fast the memory can write, but how slowly it is allowed to write on its worst millisecond — and what happens to the data when the campaign is over.
Qualification & environmentTwo standards, two philosophies, twenty-six sections and a great deal of lab time — a practical guide to what environmental qualification does, what it proves, and what a compliance claim is really worth.
FREQUENTLY ASKED
ED-112A is the reference for aeroplanes and helicopters, ED-155 the lighter standard written for small aircraft and unmanned systems. The choice follows the aircraft category and the authority in charge of the installation; we give you the comparison, the airworthiness office gives you the answer.
The file stays readable: the D.T.MUX format is designed so that an interrupted recording is not a lost one, and D.T.MUX Recover rebuilds what a cut left incomplete. Back-up power for the recorder itself is an installation decision, taken with the airworthiness office.
A secure erase is available from the Sentinel Remote Control, for operators who must not leave data on board between missions.
OTHER APPLICATIONS
Send us the aircraft type and the streams to keep. We come back with the class of protection, the memory size and the installation points to watch.
Talk to an engineer →Type at least two letters. Enter opens the first result.
