Who is David Warren that Google honored today March 20?

Google Doodle today changed the new logo to commemorate the birthday of Mr. David Warren - the inventor with many contributions to Australia and the world, especially he is the father of the flight saver (or today called a black box).

Picture 1 of Who is David Warren that Google honored today March 20?
Google changed its logo to honor Australian inventor David Warren.

Who is David Warren?

David Warren (full name David Ronald de Mey Warren AO, known as Bunny as a child) is an Australian scientist, best known for inventing and developing the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder ( also known as FDR, CVR or "black box").

David Warren was born on 20 March 1925 in Groote Eylandt, an island off the northeastern coast of Australia. David Warren's parents were missionaries.

Picture 2 of Who is David Warren that Google honored today March 20?
David Warren with his invention.

David Warren's Life and Career

At the age of 11, his father died in a mysterious plane crash off the south coast of Australia in 1934.

The last gift his father gave him was a radio set made of crystal. David Warren loved it and made radios to sell to his friends. When amateur radio was banned during the Second World War, he turned to chemistry as a hobby.

Thereafter, David Warren graduated with distinction from the University of Sydney, earning a degree in education from the University of Melbourne and a PhD in chemistry from Imperial College London.

In 1953, he went to work for the Australian Department of Defense specializing in aviation research. At this time, he was loaned by the Ministry to a council to assist in the investigation of a series of civil aviation accidents.

During a trade show, David Warren accidentally discovered a small business bag-shaped recording device. From this discovery he began to research flight savers.

In 1954, Mr. David Warren wrote an article titled 'Equipment to assist in the investigation of plane crashes' . Three years later, he finished building the data logger, which he named the ARL Flight Memory Unit.

A year later (in 1958), his device was rejected, but fortunately he met Robert Hardingham - secretary of the British Aviation Registry - in his laboratory.

Mr. Robert Hardingham was interested in David Warren's invention and gladly drove him with the box to England to show it off. The flight was the only remuneration Mr. Warren received for making the box.

In Australia, it was only after the crash of the Fokker Friendship in Mackay (Queensland) in 1960 that the investigating judge actually recommended the installation of black box flight recorders in all aircraft. Australia then became the first country in the world to make voice recordings mandatory in the cockpit.

Since that time, David Warren's invention has been widely used as a means to investigate accidents and prevent them from recurring. The flight recorder black box has proven itself more with its significant contribution to the safety of international airlines.

In the following years, he continued to work for the government and won many honors, being mentioned on the list of inventors who have made a great contribution to Australian science.

In 1983, he retired. Before retiring, he also invented new generations such as solid-state electronics , which provide more than 200 measurements, output data 128 times a second and can self-launch.

After more than 50 years without recognition for his "black box" invention, he was finally awarded the Australian Energy Institute's Energy Medal in 1999.

David Warren died on July 19, 2010 at a nursing home in Brighton, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia (at the age of 85).

What is a flight saver (black box)?

A flight recorder is a set of onboard recording devices intended for the investigation of aircraft accidents or events. This reason requires it to withstand the conditions of a serious accident such as withstanding a collision with 3600 gravity forces and a temperature of 1,000 °C.

The flight recorder consists of two devices that are often integrated into one, the flight data recorder (FDR) and the cockpit voice recorder (CVR).

Today, this device is often referred to by the name black box.