Flight recorder that continuously logs hundreds of aircraft parameters, such as altitude, airspeed, heading, control positions and engine thrust.
What it is
It is one of the two ‘black boxes’. It receives data from the aircraft’s systems and stores it in a protected memory module. ICAO requires large aircraft to retain at least the last 25 hours of operation, and recent models record everything from the position of each control surface to autopilot modes, warnings and acceleration in all three axes.
The technology has come a long way: the earliest recorders scratched a handful of parameters onto metal foil, magnetic tape followed, and today solid-state memory is the norm. With this data, investigators can rebuild the aircraft’s flight path and behaviour second by second, and even produce animations of the flight.
The same idea now reaches well beyond accidents. Many airlines download similar data from a quick access recorder (QAR) after each flight and analyse it in flight data monitoring programmes. That way they can spot, for example, approaches to a particular airport that tend to be too fast, and correct the trend through training or procedural changes before anything happens.
Related terms
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This page was last updated on October 9, 2026
APA
Vuelopedia. (2026, October 9). FDR. Retrieved October 16, 2026, from https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/fdr
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“FDR.” Vuelopedia, Fundación Poderia, 9 Oct. 2026, vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/fdr. Accessed 16 Oct. 2026.
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Vuelopedia. “FDR.” Fundación Poderia. Last modified October 9, 2026. https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/fdr.
Harvard
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BibTeX
@misc{vuelopedia_en_glossary_fdr,
author = {{Vuelopedia}},
title = {{FDR}},
publisher = {Fundación Poderia},
year = {2026},
date = {2026-10-09},
url = {https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/fdr},
howpublished = {\url{https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/fdr}},
urldate = {2026-10-16},
note = {Accessed 2026-10-16}
}Wikipedia
{{cite web |url=https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/fdr |title=FDR |website=Vuelopedia |publisher=Fundación Poderia |date=2026-10-09 |access-date=2026-10-16 |language=en}}