AMT 2102 - Midterm M1 & M2

Gyroscopic Instruments

In 1851, the French physicist Leon Foucault

In 1851, the French physicist Leon Foucault

devised a small wheel with a heavy outside rim.

When spun at a high speed, the wheel demonstrated the strange characteristic of remaining rigid in the plane in which it was spinning.

Gyroscopic Flight Instruments

instruments that have a mechanical gyroscope incorporated into their design.

Freely or Universally Mounted Gyroscope

free to rotate in any direction about its center of gravity.

Restricted or Semi-rigidly Mounted Gyroscopes

mounted so that one of the planes of freedom is held fixed in relation to the base

Rigidity in Space, Precession

Fundamental Properties of Gyroscopic Instruments

Gyroscope

Any spinning object exhibits gyroscopic properties. A wheel or rotor designed and

mounted to utilize these properties is called

Rigidity in Space

refers to the principle that a gyroscope remains in a fixed position in the plane in which it is spinning.

An example is that of a bicycle wheel.

Precession

tilting or turning of a gyro in response to a deflective force.

• Heading Indicator

• Attitude Indicator

• Turn Indicators

Instruments Using Gyroscope

Heading Indicator

• fundamentally a mechanical instrument designed to facilitate the use of the magnetic compass

• is not affected by the forces that make the magnetic compass difficult to interpret.

• depends upon the principle of rigidity in

  space.

Attitude Indicator

• formerly known as the gyro horizon or artificial horizon

• informs the pilot of the aircraft’s orientation relative to Earth's

  horizon

Turn-and-Slip Indicator

Its gyro rotates in the vertical plane corresponding to the aircraft’s longitudinal axis.

Turn Coordinator

The gimbals is canted; therefore, its gyro can sense both rate of roll and rate of turn.

Navigational maps and charts

based on a grid system of latitude and longitude, with the geographic north and south poles and the equator being the references for this grid

• Magnetic compass

• Remote indicating compass

• Slaved gyro compass

Types of Direction Indicating Instruments

Magnetic Compass

• consists of a float, constant to a bar magnet.

• The flow meeting is filled with a liquid to ease the motion of the bar magnet suspended at the pivot.

• The main body is a cast aluminum housing with a glass lens

Compass

an instrument used for navigation and orientation that shows direction

relative to the geographic cardinal directions (or points).

Remote Indicating Compass

utilizes a detector unit (usually located in the wing tips) known as the flux valve, which senses the Earth’s magnetic field (William Gilbert (1540-1603)) and reduces it to a complex phase signal.

Remote Compass Transmitter

Electrically Connected

Slaved Gyro Compass

A heading indicator, combined with direction-sensing instrumentation, overcomes

the limitations of either a conventional magnetic compass or a gyroscopic heading

indicator without directional input.

Translation of Gyroscope in Greek

to view the Earth's rotation