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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 2306.PDF
606 FLIGHT, 14 October 1960 SYSTEM SURVEY Passing the Word on the Flight Deck DIRECT voice communication on the flight deck of an aircraftcarrier is normally impossible because of the high level of aircraft noise and the fact that the deck crew wear ear protectors. Inconjunction with the Admiralty, the Telecommunications Division of the Plessey Co has developed a flight deck communicationssystem by which voice signals are fed into a magnetic coupling loop encircling the flight deck and island and picked up by tran-sistorized battery-operated receivers carried by crewmen. Key men also have a transistorized VHF transmitter attached to theirreceiver so that they can talk back to flying control through a normal VHF radio link. Both units can be carried in a pocket,leaving the wearer completely free to move about. The earphone is built into the normal ear protector and the aerial of the VHFtransmitter is provided by the screening of the microphone lead which is a quarter wave-length long. Signals can be fed into the coupling loop through local orremote microphones or from the talk-back channel, the audio signals being passed through a microphone pre-amplifier andmixed with a signal used for automatic volume control in the receiver. The portable VHF transmitter operates on a fixedfrequency and requires no tuning. A very small Ku-band Doppler aerial exhibited at the SBAC display by Canadian Marconi. Doppler equipment incorporating this and standard-sized aerials has been supplied to both Canadian and US armed forces New Ventures SEVERAL new licensing agreements and mergers have recentlybeen announced. The Lear-Romec division of Lear Inc have acquired the sales rights for Plannair cooling systems for com-munications and electronic equipment for the US and Canada. Lear also has an option for exclusive manufacturing rights forthose countries. Honeywell Controls Ltd have acquired the shares of NewElectronic Products, manufacturer of galvanometer recorders, digital magnetic tape recorders and a range of electronic equip-ment for medicine and industry. Walmore Electronics Ltd have been appointed exclusive repre-sentative in the UK for all the products of Eitel-McCullogh Inc of San Carlos, Cal. Walmore Electronics, whose address isPhoenix House, 19/23 Oxford Street, London Wl, now offer the complete range of transmitting tubes for communications,electronic systems and industrial processes, including ceramic tubes. The factory at Bangalore, India, for the manufacture of elec- The old (left) and new indicators of the Lear all-attitude flight director and wings-level bombing system. The vertical g programmer on the old instrument is replaced by the horizontal needle on the new dial. A turn and bank indicator is included in the lower rim of the new dial The computer unit of an autopilot for a supersonic aircraft being tested at the Elliott Brothers (London) factory at Boreham Wood. The com- pany claims to be alone in Europe in producing approved, integrated flight control systems for supersonic aircraft tronic equipment, installed with the technical assistance of theFrench Compagnie Generale de T.S.F. (C.S.F.) is now in produc- tion with several items of C.S.F. aviation, railway and telecom-munications equipment. Air France Orders Doppler FOR its Boeing 707s, Air France has ordered Canadian MarconiDoppler navigation equipment, bringing to seven the number of international carriers who have ordered the Canadian Doppler.The others are CPAL, Irish International, KLM, PanAm, SAA and Varig. Military Dopplers, in either X- or K-band, with eitherstandard or miniature aerials (as illustrated at left) have also been delivered to the Canadian and US armed services. Othermilitary and civil users are at present conducting flight tests of the Canadian Marconi Doppler. One has been installed in a USAFLockheed C-130. Improving the Flight Director Two existing instruments on the panel of the McDonnell F4H-1Phantom II are to be eliminated by the incorporation of a modified Lear Astra (attitude, steering, turn-rate and azimuth) flight direc-tor instrument. Lear so far have orders worth $34m for the AN/AJB-3all-attitude-indicatingandwings-level bombing system,the old and modified dials of which are illustrated below. The system includes the Lear two-gyro master reference platform,flight director signal adapters, accelerometer, rate gyro and improved compass system. Astra has also been installed in theA3J, CF-104 and X-15 and the bombing system is in the A4D-2N. The instrument is based on a globe horizon incorporatingcompass indications at the "equator." With the old instrument the pilot had to maintain the g marker at a given level throughouta toss-bombing manoeuvre, but with the new cross-pointer, the horizontal needle will give g directions and the vertical needlewings-level instructions. In other modes, the cross-pointers would be used in the normal way for computed flight commands. Theturn indicator at the base of the dial is operated from a remote rate gyro. Astra and the two-gyro platform can continue toindicate in a vertical climb.
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