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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 0774.PDF
782 FLIGHT, 10 June I960 SYSTEM SURVEY Redifon Developments DURING its first year with BOAC, the Redifon Comet flightsimulator operated for 2,000hr with only 19hr of unserviceability— a record for any BOAC simulator. Only 4yhr of unserviceabilirywere in fact traced to the simulator itself, the remainder originat- ing in other equipment used in conjunction with it. Serviceabilitynow stands at 99.97 per cent. Redifon are just completing a Vanguard simulator for TCA withfull motion in pitch, roll and heave. A similar simulator for the S AS Caravelle has been delivered to Stockholm. A most importantexport order just received is for a Caravelle simulator for United Airlines and another for a Comet type trainer for CMA MexicanAirlines. The type trainer has motion only in the pitch plane but is otherwise similar to the BOAC Comet 4 simulator. Narco in Britain INCREASING numbers of American lightweight radios are nowcoming into use in Britain, particularly in imported American business aircraft. Narco products figure prominently in these newimports and we recorded in these columns on May 6 that Vigors Aviation at Kidlingtqn were Narco United Kingdom distributors.The Canadian distributor and export agent for Narco is the Canadian Marconi Co in Montreal and they have an associatedistributor in Britain, namely A. J. Whittemore (Aeradio) Ltd based at Biggin Hill aerodrome, Kent. The English company hascarried out extensive installation and repair work on many types of radio as well as those by Narco. They fitted Elliott-producedBendix 21-series radio in one of the British-owned Piaggio P.166s and have also dealt with many other types of aircraft. Optical Projection Display ONE of the projects undertaken as part of the US Army/NavyInstrumentation Program has been the provision of contact analogue information to the pilot by reflection from a transparentglass screen. It was necessary that the screen itself should cause no attenuation of the shape and colour of the exterior scenery butthat it should also clearly reflect in almost any ambient light conditions the patterns and indications of the contact analogueoptically projected from a cathode-ray tube. The result of intensive research is the trichroic combiner in which special multipleoptical coatings have been applied to a shaped glass lens in such a way that the lens reflects pure green but remains transparent toother colours. The greens in trees, grass, paints and lights contain considerable elements of blue and yellow and it was found that thehuman eye very rapidly accommodated itself to the loss of the small pure green element and could increase its sensitivity sufficiently toreconstitute the colour in the visual image. It was found to be essential that the display should be cojlimated. Bell Helicopter Corp proposed this method for use with a contact analogue generator produced by the Autonetics division ofNorth American for the experimental HTL-7 helicopter used in the ANIP program. Optical Coating Laboratories Inc of SantaRosa, Calif, developed the special coatings and the method of depositing them so that they are now hard and water-resistani.They have succeeded in programming IBM computing equipment to determine rapidly the complex composition of the multi-layerfilm stacks required for various applications. Initial stress-cracking problems have been overcome and the transmission or leakage inthe rejected colour band has been reduced to less than 0.1 per cent. The coatings now used have even less absorption than conven-tional interference filters and the latest film stacks show an appre- ciable reduction of shift in spectrum response as the angle ofincidence is varied. The contact analogue is generated in the CRT in green andalmost any pattern or instrument indication can be projected. It has also been found possible to allow a large tolerance in the anglesfrom which the display can be viewed. Investigations now in hand seem to indicate that tetrachroic and pentachroic combinerswill in future allow the projection of two- and three-colour dis- plays. Preliminary studies, Bell claim, hold promise of full-colour,high-contrast displays presented on the trichroic combiner now used for the single-colour patterns. Optical Coating Laboratories found from their own earlier workthat there seems to be no real limit to the angular span of the display and the main problems lie in the production of uniformhigh-quality trichroic coatings over large areas and in the design of unique projection optics. Also to be overcome were the effects ofvibration in an installation where the optical elements were mounted on separate parts of the aircraft structure. The displaycan be used in both, day and night conditions; and a red filter can be applied so that the display appears red for night flying. One of the most difficult elements in the contact analoguedisplays proposed for the airborne applications of ANIP has been in the actual presentation. Initially, it was proposed that a newflat transparent television tube originally developed by Kaiser Aircraft and Electronics should be employed for the direct presen-tation of the electronically generated contact analogue. The tube was complex in itself and has taken some years to develop even toits present stage. The use of an optical system, with the contact analogue generator, CRT and projection lens mounted behind thepilot's shoulder and a plain collimated screen ahead of him, seems to offer a considerable simplification. Douglas some time agocarried out initial flight trials of the TV tube in a Lockheed T2V and Bell have used the trichroic combiner both in actual helicoptersand in simulators. In parallel with the ANIP program, submarine and surfaceship controls of an entirely new kind are being developed under the names SUBIC (submarine integrated controls) and SURIC(surface ship integrated controls). The Electric Boat Co has already provided these for some of the latest American submarines. Trichroic combiners for optical projection of a blind - flying presentation. Far left, the Bell HTL-7 with combiner, Ryan Doppler and Bendix sonic altimeter. Top right, the combiner in a mock-up showing the contact analogue. Lower right, genera- tor and combiner in an F3D Skynight
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