First off, the darn things aren't black.

In fact, they never were. They started out red, but are now orange with reflective stripes.

So how did the so-called black boxes, the cockpit voice and flight data recorders that seem to survive everything short of a Sept. 11-style inferno, get their name?

Science, so elusive to many of us, is to blame.

A black box is a scientific experiment where an object is put into a box, which often was black. The box would be given to someone to figure out what was inside by shaking the box, gauging its weight, and any manner of simple deductions.

"It doesn't give you a lot of answers, but it gives you a lot of information so you can deduce the answers," said aviation expert Craig "Buzz" Conroy, who travels the country talking about "Those Amazing Black Boxes."

Speaking Thursday at the Free and Accepted Masons Wilmington Lodge 804, New Wilmington, Conroy, a long-time Mason, said it took years for the inventor of the black boxes to find any interest in the devices.

But forms of them are now included in trains, cruise ships and newer model cars, triggered when an airbag is deployed.

Aviation remains the first and best known use of the boxes.

Sir David Warren, an Australian fuel engineer, developed the idea over 20 years before he finally built one.

"When he invented it, nobody wanted it," said Conroy, a former Hermitage resident. "After a few crashes, people thought, 'Oh, that might be a good idea.' "

Warren's invention made it into its first planes in the '60s, when British-made Comets went down with increasing regularity.

The boxes have changed in many ways over the years, but their basic purpose is the same: to record key information that can help investigators determine the cause of a crash.

The cockpit voice recorder picks up the voices of the cockpit crew, and intercom transmissions by flight attendants. The microphones are sensitive enough that investigators can identify switches that were or were not turned on by their clicks, or the lack of clicks.

Four to six microphones feed signals into the CVR.

Traditionally, the continuous loop recording mechanism lasted for 30 minutes, but newer models go up to two hours.

The flight data recorder records fuel pressure, the settings of flaps, ailerons and rudder, and other mechanical data for up to 30 hours.

The boxes are placed near the back of the plane, often at the front of the base of the tail.

"If it was in the nose cone, it would be crunched right away," said Conroy, of Gibsonia, who is frequently tapped by news sources to comment on crash investigations.

The 38-pound boxes are made of layers of aluminum treated with a non-corrosive material. They can withstand 10 Gs of force, temperatures up to 7,000 degrees for an hour, and are fine in water for weeks.

The impact of a crash or water completes an electrical circuit that sends out a pinging sound. Broadcast at 37.5 megahertz, the sound can be heard within 27 miles on land, or three miles in water.

A black box costs about $25,000 to make.

The lesson of the black box is that there's always a reason for a crash. Conroy, co-author of "Effective Aviation Crisis Management," said he never becomes angry or frustrated when a plane he is on is stuck at the gate for some last-minute fix.

"Anytime they want to delay a flight, be happy," he said. "They're doing something to save your life."

You can e-mail Herald Staff Writer Joe Pinchot at jpinchot@sharon-herald.com