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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 1835.PDF
642 FLIGHT International, 17 October 1963 Aviation Electronics A "FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL" SURVEY 'he BLEU Comet fitted for blind landing development with Smiths multiplex auto- Pilot and instrumentation • AS Autumn draws on, the display season comes to a close, this year without the SBAC show at Farnborough, but with two major symposia in the electronics equipment field, namely, the FAA meeting on all-weather operation at Atlantic City and the RAE/EEA symposium on electronics development for civil aviation at Farnborough and Malvern. Both these meetings are extensively reported in this special feature, together with additional information en some US industry projects. The FAA and All-weather Landing IT seems that one has only to arrange a meeting to examine the problems of all-weather operations to ensure weather con ditions appropriate to the subject. On the opening day of the FAA Symposium on all-weather landing at Atlantic City last month, the weather in the Atlantic City area was so bad that Mr N. Halaby, the Federal Administrator, was unable to arrive in time to make the opening address. When he did arrive, several hours late, his speech was undoubtedly coloured by the fact that his journey from California by Jet-Star had involved five instrument approaches in fourteen hours, including missed approaches at Atlantic City. Mr Halaby made the plea that, while pursuing the goal of all- weather capability for fully equipped air transport aircraft at major traffic terminals, the requirements of other aircraft at other air fields should not be overlooked. He suggested that progress toward the airlines' objective should also provide benefits in economy and increased safety for all of aviation. The FAA has already made some progress in this direction by designing low-cost ILS installations capable of operation to Phase I weather minima of 200ft and £ mile. The cost of these installations is $80,000, com pared with 5260,000 for the previous equipment, so that it should be possible to provide ILS at more airports. It is hoped that this cost break-through will improve instrument approach facilities at many of the world's airports where more sophisticated equipment cannot be economically justified. The pioneering work of BLEU and the Smiths Autoland con version of the FAA's DC-7 received a sincere tribute of praise from Mr. Halaby. He indicated that similar systems based on ILS- coupled autopilot, with "glide-slope extension" where necessary, and autoflare using radio altimeters were the first systems likely to enter service on US-registered aircraft, in 1966. The attention of the meeting was directed throughout to the problems of operation at the ICAO and I AT A Phase II weather minima of 100ft cloud- base and visibility, or runway visual range, of i mile. There were three major sessions, each followed by panel discussions. The first was devoted to the airborne components of all-weather systems. Airborne Systems A tidy international balance was maintained in this field by presenting six papers on airborne systems, three from British and three from United States manufacturers. The first speaker was Mr R. W. Howard of Elliott Brothers (London) Ltd, who concentrated on the design and testing of monitoring systems. Three possible categories of automatic monitoring were discussed, with examples of each type. These were absolute measurement, comparison monitoring and performance monitoring. Mr Howard suggested that each category had its application. The VC10 requirement was explained as automatic failure detection, with failure survival, using only a minimum of redundancy. On the subject of nuisance disconnects, Mr Howard stated that the VC10 system calls for a minimum nuisance-disengagement level of one per 1,000 hours for each cross-monitored section of each half of the complete installation, which should give a considerable safety and confidence level. The conclusion reached in the paper was that it may be possible to increase the reliance placed on automatic monitoring systems, even to the extent of allowing them partial responsibility for overall aircraft safety. Mr Zeffert, of BAC, in a paper entitled The BAC One-Eleven and All-Weather Landing, described the dilemma of the manufacturer of short-haul aircraft. Because of the widely differing requirements of airlines, large and small, a difficult balance has to be achieved between producing an aircraft which is inexpensive and simple to operate and maintain, and one which is capable of matching the weather minima capabilities of the long-haul aircraft when neces sary. Mr Zeffert pointed out that the cost of equipping the short- haul aircraft may be as high as nine or ten per cent of the total price, and that this must have a significant effect on seat-mile costs. BAC believe that the systems designed for the One-Eleven shoula be flexible, ranging perhaps from a straightforward single-channel autopilot to full automatics. There is little doubt within BAC that there will be a customer demand for something which will allow a lowering of minima without going all the way to full blind landing- The interest of Aer Lingus in automatic landing for the BAC One Mr self die Eleven was announced and a firm BAC project now exists Zeffert suggested that the basic design of the One-Eleven lends to all-weather equipment by virtue of the duplicated systems ( aircraft. The basic Bendix PB-20D for the One-Eleven differs trota the standard equipment in the stabilizer trim-motor and the inc u" sion of a torque-limiter adaptor unit in the pitch axis designed limit the accelerating forces due to a "hard-over" while leaving \ autopilot with adequate authority. Starting with this basic equip- >
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