David Warren (inventor)

David Warren with the prototype of a flight recorder

David "Dave" Warren AO (born March 20, 1925 on Groote Eylandt , Northern Territory , † July 19, 2010 in Melbourne ) was an Australian scientist who became famous for the invention of the flight recorder . He studied in Sydney and received his PhD in London , United Kingdom .

Warren spent most of his childhood and early teens in boarding schools in Launceston , Tasmania , and Sydney . In 1935, Warren's father was killed in one of the first plane crashes in Australian history. His father's last present was a detector receiver that Warren used to listen to the radio in the dormitory of the boarding school. The detector receiver sparked his interest in electrical engineering . He started building two-way radios as a hobby. When amateur radio was banned due to the war and his hopes of becoming Australia's youngest amateur radio operator were dampened, he turned to chemistry .

From 1944 to 1946 Warren was a math and chemistry teacher in Geelong , Victoria . He then worked as a lecturer in chemistry at the University of Sydney until 1948 . He was then until 1951 Scientific Officer at the Woomera Rocket Range and at Imperial College , London.

From 1951 to 1983 he held the position of Principal Research Scientist at the Aeronautical Research Laboratories (ARL) as a specialist in aviation fuels in Melbourne. In 1953 and 1954 there was a mysterious series of de Havilland Comet jet plane crashes in which there were neither survivors nor eyewitnesses to question the cause. As a member of the ARL commissioned to investigate this series of accidents, Warren designed the prototype of the first practical flight recorder, the ARL Flight Memory Unit, with the simplest of means. The aviation industry, airlines and aviation safety authorities were initially hardly interested in this. It was not until 1966 that the Australian airlines were legally obliged to install flight data recorders in their aircraft.

From 1981 to 1982 he was an academic advisor to the Victoria State Parliament.

Warren was named Officer of the Order of Australia in 2002 for his contributions to the aviation industry, including early conceptual work and development of a prototype flight data recorder .

Trivia

• Based on the inscription on the flight recorder “ Flight Recorder; Do not open ”Warren's coffin was labeled“ Flight Recorder Inventor; Do not open ".
• The 2011 delivered Airbus A380 of Qantas with the registration VH-OQI was named after Warren.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Dieter Vogt: Father of the Black Box. FAZ Online, July 22, 2010, accessed April 17, 2011 .  
2. ↑ It's an Honor. Australian Government, accessed April 17, 2011 . 
3. ↑ Pictures of the Day: July 23, The Wall Street Journal, July 23, 2010, accessed October 25, 2011 . 
4. ↑ Airbus A380 - MSN 55. airfleets.net, accessed on October 25, 2011 (English). 

Web links

• Dave Warren - Biography. Australia Government, Department of Defense, Defense Science and Technology Organization, accessed April 17, 2011 . 
• The inventor of the black box is dead. In: Salzburger Nachrichten. July 22, 2010, accessed August 31, 2012 .