NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: The Bygrave
From: Gary LaPook
Date: 2009 Jul 05, 07:00 -0700
From: Gary LaPook
Date: 2009 Jul 05, 07:00 -0700
It appears that Bygrave also came up with the idea for the "slaved gyro" which is in common use in almost all planes with more than about six seats. It consists of a compass element mounted out by the wing tip, away from ferrous metals and electrical influences, connected to the directional gyro (DG). In simpler instruments, the DG is free running and precesses over time due to friction in the bearings. In addition to this actual precession there is "apparent precession" due to the plane moving over the surface of the earth. In addition, there is "earth transport precession" caused by the earth rotating away from the original plane of reference. So in an airplane sitting on the ground with a frictionless perfect gyro the heading will appear to drift at a rate of 15.04 degrees per hour times the sine of the latitude just like a Foucault pendulum since they both maintain their orientations in inertial space. So pilots periodically read the compass in the cockpit and reset the DG. A compass in a plane can only be read in straight and level unaccelerated flight. If the airplane is banked or if it speeds up or slows down the compass card is moved away from horizontal and is then caused to turn by the vertical component of the earth's magnetic field giving erroneous readings. The slaved gyro's remote compass constantly resets the DG while in level flight but is disconnected during turns and accelerations and the gyroscope maintains its direction during those short periods. gl douglas.denny@btopenworld.com wrote: > source: > The Journal of Navigation - Page 136 > Institute of Navigation (Great Britain) - 1955 > article: > "Automatic Dead Reckoning and Navigation Instruments for Aircraft" by H.C. Pritchard > extract: > ============== > > In fact it was published in 1956 in Vol. IX of 'The Journal Of the Institute of Navigation' > > Here is the first page. > > Douglas Denny. > Chichester. England. > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Navigation List archive: www.fer3.com/arc To post, email NavList@fer3.com To , email NavList-@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---