Airborne television for ice reconnaissance

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1958
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 142 KB
• Volume: 266
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0016-0032
• DOI: 10.1016/0016-0032(58)90253-9

✦ Synopsis

Master Flight Reference System.-Development of a master flight reference system which intergrates output for auto pilot, Doppler radar, low altitude bombing (LAB) maneuvers, dead-reckoning equipment and allattitude indication has been announced by General Electric. The new aircraft all-attitude compass system-designated Type SR-1 by Instrument Department engineers--uses non-floated gyros with a drift rate of only one degree per hour. The gyros require no heaters, literally functioning on demand.

First application of the General Electric device is on the Navy's A3J Vigilante, a supersonic attack plane which rolled out at North American Aviation Inc., Columbus, Ohio, in mid-May.

A unique "Roll Yaw Computer" translates Earth's coordinates into aircraft coordinates, furnishing proper signals for weapons delivery and automatic flight control. The new computer also allows the use of late-type remote 3-axis all-attitude indicators.

Compensation for the Earth's rotation and east-west ground speed can be supplied to the system from Doppler radar or other computing devices. When such equipment is not available, corrections can be inserted manually on the Controller.

The east-west ground speed correction feature provides heading corrections for apparent drift caused by aircraft motion around the axis of the Earth.

Heart of the SR-1 is the 3-gyro, 4-gimbal reference platform. This component weighs only 24.5 lbs., 540