Momentous Black Box Program is Launched
First Steps Taken in
Hydroplane Safety Innovations
On
March 28, 2009 the first Northwest Safety Seminar dedicated to addressing
safety in power boat racing was conducted in
The innovative “Black Box program” is being developed cooperatively between the Union of International Motorboating, the ULHRA, and inthinc, a developer and manufacturer of technologies to improve driving safety. The Union of International Motorboating, or UIM, is the international governing body of power boating. It is recognized as such by the International Olympic Committee and 52 member nations.
What
have been dubbed “black boxes” are actually a product of inthinc
called the Witness® Incident Data Recorder. Witness®, was initially
designed for the insurance industry to help address losses due to fraudulent
claims. In 2001, following the tragic death of Dale Earnhardt, NASCAR®
mandated crash data recorders and turned to the Witness® product in their
quest to create the safest car possible for the sport. Information obtained
from the recorder helped shape the design and engineering decisions leading to ‘The
Car of Tomorrow’. Racing series other than NASCAR’s Cup,
Nationwide, and Camping World Truck Series, that use inthinc’s Witness
products include, FIA, WRC,
Bob Wartinger, President of the UIM’s Safety and Medical Commission explains. “Data recording has been going on for about 15 years in auto racing for the purposes of collecting crash data. It has become much more sophisticated in the last five years. In NASCAR, for example, there was enough data collected that they used it to design the ‘Car of Tomorrow’ that they are racing now and injuries have dropped dramatically during the recent years. To do that they had data from about 140 cars, 40 races a year, for a number of years with lots of crashes. That’s what it took. Real world crash data with live human beings are at a premium. Even NASA utilizes competitive motorsports crash data to make their lunar lander designs safer. Unfortunately in the boat racing world, we have very little of this kind of data.
Seats, belts, restraints, HANS type devices, crush zones, etc. are now designed from the crash data. Crash data, along with film is used to analyze an accident. Sled tests are done in the laboratory using the crash impulses to test improvements, then the designs are incorporated in the cars.
We have no data, or it’s well hidden data, on hydroplane loads. Regardless, there’s no time like now! This is the beginning of a multi-year hydroplane data gathering program. Analysis and consequently design and safety improvements are the expected outcome. First we learn the baseline loads, then keep adjusting the recording thresholds during the first season. We analyze each collision event and store those traces in a database for analysis. Even non-collision events are helpful in better understanding the operational environment for both man and machine. After the thresholds are set, data is generally recorded when there is some type of incident that exceeds the thresholds, such as a spin-out or blow over.
Unlimited Light
Hydroplane Racing Association President Joe Frauenheim said, “Our recent
race at Firebird Raceways in
The three hydroplanes who participated in the first batch of data collection are owned by Frauenheim (Impact Racing), Muncey Racing and Johnson-Wolfe Racing. For more information on the manufacturer of the hydroplane “black box”, please visit www.inthinc.com. For more information regarding the Unlimited Light Hydroplane Racing Association, please visit www.ulhra.org.