> I quote New Scientist: tiny chip-sized micro-electromechanical systems include
gyroscopes, tilt sensors and accellerometers which can be bought off the shelf
and plugged in , made in a similar way to silicon chips so they're cheap. Now
why do I have to have a bloody great suction pump and a tonnage of whirling
dervishes in my dashboard just to get the same information? I could now surely
put my flight simulator software to good use and have an image on my palm-top
in the cockpit just like the one on my play-screen, which , with input from
the Garmin, is topographically correct and visually corresponds to the attitude,
speed, etc of the aircraft. All for a few bob. What's wrong with the world
- the technology exists and is cheap and we haven't got it. Woe!.....h
Unfortunately, the cheap chip-gyros are not very accurate, and the accurate
chip gyros are very expensive. You can get some very nice, cheap rate
gyros which are good for the turn-and-bank indicator (as seen in the NavAid
autopilot) ... but they drift far too fast to be useful for the attitude
indicator. You can get some very accurate laser-ring-gyros which will work
for the attitude (as seen in the Sierra Flight Systems display), but they are
very expensive.
Maybe soon the chip gyros will become more accurate ... I sure hope so!
Brian
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