FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1959
1959 - 2383.PDF
268 FLIGHT, 18 September 1959 The Marconi AD.308 transistorized H.F. receiver and flush aerial with Creed airborne teleprinter 'for airline use Round the Stands ... - the Comet is known to perform very well in practice and hascleared up many of the troubles associated with the not easy business of making the cabin staff heard in an aeroplane interior. The Redifon stand had a new transmitter to engage the atten-tion of communications people responsible for providing the telegraph and telephone facilities of the aeronautical radio services.The new G.420 family is a 1.5 kW peak-power transmitter cover- ing the band 1.5-30 Mc/s and providing for various transmissionmodes and modulation types. It permits single-sideband and independent sideband working, gives facilities for pre-set on upto eight frequencies and several drive units are available, e.g. for twinplex telegraph working, facsimile transmission, frequency-shift keying and radio-phone. It is designed in unit form to satisfy the diverse needs of the individual user and permits him to add orchange as the needs of his service dictate. Both Fleet Air Arm and R.A.F. are now well into their con-version from V.H.F. to U.H.F. communications radio. McMichael Radio produce the blade aerial, suitable for supersonic flight, andseen on many aircraft in the display. W.S. Electronics showed the D.120 U.H.F. transmitter/receiver which solves the twinproblems of correct frequency correction and peak-performance tuning. The noticeable revival in radio for light aircraft brought thePlessey PTR.161 lightweight, six-channel V.H.F. remote control radio and the Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Airmite 2four-channel set with self-contained power supply and total weight of 14 lb. Burndept showed the new five-channel light aircraft1W V.H.F. radio which includes a transistorized power supply for 6, 12 or 24V supplies. It has been designed for 50 kc/s channel-spacing but is produced with 100 kc/s spacing. It weighs 6\ 1b. It costs about £90 and crystals can be changed in flight. Navigation Equipment ~'~ .. ".' • '.-• . The British industry is now fast catching up with the formid-able American technological lead in inertial navigation equipment and systems. Last week Flight recorded the opening of Ferranti'snew inertial gyro-production laboratory in which both Kearfott and Ferranti units are to be produced. The English ElectricInstrument Wing exhibited at Farnborough, for the first time anywhere in the world, a working example of the MinneapolisHoneywell miniature stable platform incorporating the GG.49 miniature integrating gyros which the Wing is now producingunder licence at Stevenage together with the pendulous current- balance accelerometer GG.56. These items are suitable for theso-called short-term inertial navigators in which various gyros could be combined. One might be two GG.49s stabilizing a largerazimuth gyro. Also on the stand was a simple Polar-axis test table to which an electronic chart recorder was coupled for generaltesting of mechanical characteristics of gyros. The Kearfott rate integrating floated gyro costs several thousand pounds and theAmerican price of an M-H GG.49D miniature floated gyro is about $6,000. Sperry were exhibiting the Rotorace gyro, both inthe C.ll compass system and the twin gyro fully manoeuvrable platform. Costing about £1,000, the Rotorace has a specifiedrandom drift of 1 deg/hr and actually achieves j deg/hr. Inertial tolerances are, of course, much closer. Elliott Bros, are producing the inertial guidance for the Avrostand-off bomb, but were only able to show a general illustration of the "mission profile" of this weapon. Graseby Instrumentswere exhibiting their Polar-axis test table for inertial gyros and also the G.I.390 Universal Gyro Tester in which a completerange of tests can be carried out without shifting or switching off the gyro. The mounting for the gyro itself was of a size appro-priate to the Kearfott floated gyro. The Universal Gyro Tester can be used, without stopping or re-mounting the gyro, as a three-axis precision dividing head for closed-loop tests or, alternatively, by using the servo control of the gimbal it can be used to studythe performance of the gyro while the latter is actually stabilizing a platform. During either test all three axes have 360 deg freedomof movement. A reading microscope and a photo-electric readout device are incorporated and, with a suitable timer, performancefigures can be recorded directly on an electric typewriter to allow unattended testing over a period of hours. Having achieved the technological capability to producethe extremely precise equipment needed for inertial systems, British companies are now undertaking the design of completenavigation systems and it is noteworthy that they are confident that the gyros they produce will be every bit as good, if not better,than their American equivalents. Having finally tackled this exceptionally difficult task, British manufacturers seem quiteconfident of being able to carry on successfully on their own initiative. Special-purpose navigation computers are being produced fora variety of military applications. Already well known are the automatic plotting table produced by Louis Newmark and theautomatic map plotter by Kelvin Hughes. Exhibited this year was the Sperry Radio Track Guide coupler system for automatictrack-following using radio aids such as Decca, Dectra, Vortac, Gee and Loran C. Appropriate co-ordinates of departure anddestination points can be set manually or by punched card and the device will then compute a virtually straight course betweenthe two and provide heading error signals to an autopilot. Trials with coupling to Decca have been carried out and both militaryand civil applications are foreseen. The only new equipment required is the computer which weighs 50 lb and has avolume of 1 cu ft. In future it would be possible to control aircraft automatically in both time and space, thus making full use of theairspace available for civil operations. In this instance a computer on the ground would be needed to produce route programmes andto check flight clearances. The information could then be used to check progress of aircraft during flight. Another relatively new navigation computer is the CanadianApplied Research Anadac. It incorporates a pictorial map display and control panels together with course and distance dial andwind velocity dial. Switches provide for operation as a plain D.R. computer or coupling with .A.D.F., Tacan or Doppler.A further control allows the selection of automatic course and distance presentation to any one of five pre-set bases selected bypush-button. One of the computers offered for use with the Marconi AD.2300 Doppler radar
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
