Ok i was reading the planes and parachutes thread and someone linked Cecils column on “Why aren’t whole planes made from the black-box flight reccorder material” and i remember hearing once or twice, in reference to air crashes “the black box stopped recording indicating a power cut”, which lead me to wonder ; why not give the black boxes their own power source?
IANA aircraft mechanic but I’d imagine they could have even a nuclear reactor powering them and still if the instruments that send them information have their power interrupted then it does absolutely no good.
Kinda like having the TV on but no cable, satellite or DVD as input.