Detailed Discussion Desired: Flying in the Past
Water Humidifiers:
All of the British-built aircraft that I ever flew had a water humidifier system. The DC-10 was the first machine that I ever remember that did not have such an animal. I started to have symptoms caused by dehydration that I did not fully understand. Fortunately, my GP was an ex-RAF medic and he put me right. Some exploration established that the cabin of a DC-10 flying from LGW to LAX could be as low as 7% humid (we normally like around 80 - 90%).
So, I stopped drinking lots of coffee and similar diuretics until I got to the bar after landing.
As usual, I have to tell a funny story. As Brakedwell will no doubt remember, the humidifier system on the Argosy consisted of a drip feed from the domestic (potable) water tank. The capacity of this tank is firmly imprinted upon my brain. It was a 26 gallon tank. At the bottom was a brass tap which was normally wire locked into the "drip feed" position.
The aircraft are coming brand new from the factory and I am a very junior sprog co-pilot. My captain is an "old hairy" called Dad Owen. We get airborne from Benson one morning headed for Malta. Just after take-off, the F/E puts the blowers on (air conditioning packs).
Suddenly, it is raining everywhere! It is coming out of all the punkah louvres and all around us. I look across the cockpit and Dad looks like a drowned rat and not a particularly happy person. I want to laugh but this is actually really serious.
My leader is far more experienced than I will probably ever be and the first thing in his mind is that all the invertors and other critical stuff are all underneath the freight floor.
So, what happened?
The airman who had been sent out to replenish the potable water system had just arrived on the station. Because the aircraft was brand new no one had got round to wire-locking the brass tap at the bottom of the domestic water tank to the humidifier position. So, when your man started pumping, he succeeded in getting 200 gallons into a 26 gallon tank.
The other 174 gallons had ended up in the pressurisation trunking and that is what we received when the F/E put the packs on.
The aircraft did not fly again for 6 weeks.
All of the British-built aircraft that I ever flew had a water humidifier system. The DC-10 was the first machine that I ever remember that did not have such an animal. I started to have symptoms caused by dehydration that I did not fully understand. Fortunately, my GP was an ex-RAF medic and he put me right. Some exploration established that the cabin of a DC-10 flying from LGW to LAX could be as low as 7% humid (we normally like around 80 - 90%).
So, I stopped drinking lots of coffee and similar diuretics until I got to the bar after landing.
As usual, I have to tell a funny story. As Brakedwell will no doubt remember, the humidifier system on the Argosy consisted of a drip feed from the domestic (potable) water tank. The capacity of this tank is firmly imprinted upon my brain. It was a 26 gallon tank. At the bottom was a brass tap which was normally wire locked into the "drip feed" position.
The aircraft are coming brand new from the factory and I am a very junior sprog co-pilot. My captain is an "old hairy" called Dad Owen. We get airborne from Benson one morning headed for Malta. Just after take-off, the F/E puts the blowers on (air conditioning packs).
Suddenly, it is raining everywhere! It is coming out of all the punkah louvres and all around us. I look across the cockpit and Dad looks like a drowned rat and not a particularly happy person. I want to laugh but this is actually really serious.
My leader is far more experienced than I will probably ever be and the first thing in his mind is that all the invertors and other critical stuff are all underneath the freight floor.
So, what happened?
The airman who had been sent out to replenish the potable water system had just arrived on the station. Because the aircraft was brand new no one had got round to wire-locking the brass tap at the bottom of the domestic water tank to the humidifier position. So, when your man started pumping, he succeeded in getting 200 gallons into a 26 gallon tank.
The other 174 gallons had ended up in the pressurisation trunking and that is what we received when the F/E put the packs on.
The aircraft did not fly again for 6 weeks.
Aaaaah! Punkah Louvres,
We had them on BOAC VC10s too. I always had this image in my mind of a turbaned Indian down in the cargo bay with a string tied around his big toe, gently wafting, via a suitable system of knotted strings and pulleys, a large feathered contraption above my head wafting cool air to sooth my fevered brow while I flew a complicated approach!!
But it never seemed to work quite that way.
We had them on BOAC VC10s too. I always had this image in my mind of a turbaned Indian down in the cargo bay with a string tied around his big toe, gently wafting, via a suitable system of knotted strings and pulleys, a large feathered contraption above my head wafting cool air to sooth my fevered brow while I flew a complicated approach!!
But it never seemed to work quite that way.
We'll be on air conditioning next !
On the Beverley it was remove the Verey Pistol, get a cardboard cup and cut a slot in one side of it, stick it in the now vacated Verey Pistol orifice with the slot facing forwards into the airstream, and, hey presto, you had a flow of coldish air into the cabin. Luxury!
On the Beverley it was remove the Verey Pistol, get a cardboard cup and cut a slot in one side of it, stick it in the now vacated Verey Pistol orifice with the slot facing forwards into the airstream, and, hey presto, you had a flow of coldish air into the cabin. Luxury!
Cows were the most efficient humidifiers I came across. Fifty or sixty of them in pens spread along the full length of the cabin produced an immense amount of humid breath. During the cruise there was no real problem, the trouble started in the descent. Water poured out of the sound proofing in the flight deck roof, soaking everything below. The Britannia was the original all electric aeroplane and prone to short circuits, popped fuses and sticking relays, water was not welcome. Experienced hands donned their hats and dirty old raincoats before TOD.
Fortunately these deluges never caused any problems for me, but an angry Boar bursting through the flight deck door with the loadmaster hanging on to its tail was a different story when it buried its nose in the central pedestal as we crossed the outer marker on an ILS approach into Malpensa. The situation was saved after I abandoned the approach and the flight engineer grabbed the pig's left ear, the first officer took it's right ear and the loadmaster was pulling it by the tail. They managed to force the monster animal into it's pen at the front of the cabin and bent the bars back into place while we were in the holding pattern and I was trying to explain what was happening to ATC.
Fortunately these deluges never caused any problems for me, but an angry Boar bursting through the flight deck door with the loadmaster hanging on to its tail was a different story when it buried its nose in the central pedestal as we crossed the outer marker on an ILS approach into Malpensa. The situation was saved after I abandoned the approach and the flight engineer grabbed the pig's left ear, the first officer took it's right ear and the loadmaster was pulling it by the tail. They managed to force the monster animal into it's pen at the front of the cabin and bent the bars back into place while we were in the holding pattern and I was trying to explain what was happening to ATC.
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Many differences come to mind, depending just how far back I care to think.
In the early sixties you were not considered an experienced pilot until you had a command on an aircraft over 12500 lbs., the DC-3 being the main contender. Turbo props were the next step up and the pure jet for the hallowed few…
As for getting from A to B, these were pre VOR days and the normal was ether straining ones ears to hear the “A” or “N” of the aural leg of the VAR, or bracketing the ADF needle as it swung fifteen degrees either side of course towards the NDB.
Flying over water and out of radio beacon range it was a matter of running an air plot, and if you were lucky, supplemented with an angle from the drift sight.
And at one point in my career, I found myself flying a four engine aircraft, single pilot IFR, and with no auto pilot to assist.
As the years passed technology changed and one adapted with each change, but those basic skills, once learned, were never forgot…
In the early sixties you were not considered an experienced pilot until you had a command on an aircraft over 12500 lbs., the DC-3 being the main contender. Turbo props were the next step up and the pure jet for the hallowed few…
As for getting from A to B, these were pre VOR days and the normal was ether straining ones ears to hear the “A” or “N” of the aural leg of the VAR, or bracketing the ADF needle as it swung fifteen degrees either side of course towards the NDB.
Flying over water and out of radio beacon range it was a matter of running an air plot, and if you were lucky, supplemented with an angle from the drift sight.
And at one point in my career, I found myself flying a four engine aircraft, single pilot IFR, and with no auto pilot to assist.
As the years passed technology changed and one adapted with each change, but those basic skills, once learned, were never forgot…
A couple of small but quite important things came along in the 1970s which we now take completely for granted. In the RAF we were issued with the standard issue Aircrew Watch. They were, of course, driven by clockwork and although they were considered to be valuable and attractive items, they were not really very accurate. They were all calibrated at the Greenwich Observatory and were probably as good as you could get for the time.
From a navigators point of view, having an accurate time piece was essential for measuring longitude.
Then along came the Seiko Quartz watch and they offered a degree of accuracy that had hitherto been only a dream. I bought my first Seiko 4004 in Masirah for £17 in 1975 and it is still going strong 42 years later. I simply have to change the battery once a year. Needless to say, the standard issue Aircrew Watch was handed back to stores very shortly afterwards.
The other great invention was the Personal Calculator. I was talked into buying my first one in Hong Kong shortly after I bought the watch. Compared to the modern version, it was huge but I was quite fascinated by it. I can remember sitting in a HK pub while we all tried to beat it by giving it quite complicated (we thought) sums to do. We didn't succeed. We were in Singapore a couple of days later and I found myself multiplying 50 x 2 on the new toy.
I suddenly wakened up to the fact that the thing was taking over my brain so I put it away for the rest of the trip. I flogged it to one of the navigators (at a modest profit) when I got back to Brize. (They found them invaluable for working out 3-star fixes etc).
Since then, I have continued to use mental gymnastics and will only ever use one to check my answer to some particularly complicated calculation.
I wonder how many of the younger generation could manage without one?
From a navigators point of view, having an accurate time piece was essential for measuring longitude.
Then along came the Seiko Quartz watch and they offered a degree of accuracy that had hitherto been only a dream. I bought my first Seiko 4004 in Masirah for £17 in 1975 and it is still going strong 42 years later. I simply have to change the battery once a year. Needless to say, the standard issue Aircrew Watch was handed back to stores very shortly afterwards.
The other great invention was the Personal Calculator. I was talked into buying my first one in Hong Kong shortly after I bought the watch. Compared to the modern version, it was huge but I was quite fascinated by it. I can remember sitting in a HK pub while we all tried to beat it by giving it quite complicated (we thought) sums to do. We didn't succeed. We were in Singapore a couple of days later and I found myself multiplying 50 x 2 on the new toy.
I suddenly wakened up to the fact that the thing was taking over my brain so I put it away for the rest of the trip. I flogged it to one of the navigators (at a modest profit) when I got back to Brize. (They found them invaluable for working out 3-star fixes etc).
Since then, I have continued to use mental gymnastics and will only ever use one to check my answer to some particularly complicated calculation.
I wonder how many of the younger generation could manage without one?
Ah yes, calculators...
When my university degree course included the flight testing course at Cranfield using a Dove repossessed from that crook Savundra, the only calculator the College had for our use was an electro-mechanical thing. Which worked fine for working out the CG etc - but was slow and rather noisy, much like the old Dove.
Then in 1972 I bought my first calculator - a 'Prinztronic Micro' which was about the size of a packet of cigarettes, used 4 x AA cells and burned half a watt of power. If you held it against your ear in a quiet room, you could actually hear it working. It also knackered reception on any nearby Medium Wave radio.
I noticed that the rules of the game for my Aero Eng finals stated that 'slide rules and calculators are permitted'. Being somewhat doubtful that they actually knew about personal calculators, I made sure that I left the final calculations in one exam in 'long fraction' form, then quickly calculated the answers with the Prinztronic Micro. I managed about 3 before the invigilator came over and snaffled it. "But your rules, see here, allow it!", I protested. When the exam was over, he reappeared with a piece of paper on which it said that electronic calculators were not allowed. "This is dated today, so you've decided to change the terms and conditions of an informal contract without the other party's agreement, have you?", I said. "Err, don't know. But you may not use your calculator!".....
But that was the last exam which involved significant number crunching. As soon as I'd finished the last exam, I went back to Halls, collected all my belongings and drove to the UAS aerodrome for much Chipmunkery! Far more fun than that wretched degree course!
When my university degree course included the flight testing course at Cranfield using a Dove repossessed from that crook Savundra, the only calculator the College had for our use was an electro-mechanical thing. Which worked fine for working out the CG etc - but was slow and rather noisy, much like the old Dove.
Then in 1972 I bought my first calculator - a 'Prinztronic Micro' which was about the size of a packet of cigarettes, used 4 x AA cells and burned half a watt of power. If you held it against your ear in a quiet room, you could actually hear it working. It also knackered reception on any nearby Medium Wave radio.
I noticed that the rules of the game for my Aero Eng finals stated that 'slide rules and calculators are permitted'. Being somewhat doubtful that they actually knew about personal calculators, I made sure that I left the final calculations in one exam in 'long fraction' form, then quickly calculated the answers with the Prinztronic Micro. I managed about 3 before the invigilator came over and snaffled it. "But your rules, see here, allow it!", I protested. When the exam was over, he reappeared with a piece of paper on which it said that electronic calculators were not allowed. "This is dated today, so you've decided to change the terms and conditions of an informal contract without the other party's agreement, have you?", I said. "Err, don't know. But you may not use your calculator!".....
But that was the last exam which involved significant number crunching. As soon as I'd finished the last exam, I went back to Halls, collected all my belongings and drove to the UAS aerodrome for much Chipmunkery! Far more fun than that wretched degree course!
For greater accuracy in pre-calculator days we used 4-figure logs.
Punkah louvres: you could have fun with your pax asking them to point the louvres rearwards to add extra thrust for take-off.
Punkah louvres: you could have fun with your pax asking them to point the louvres rearwards to add extra thrust for take-off.
"Mildly" Eccentric Stardriver
Calculators. I promised myself the first one in UK under £ 20. 1973. Red LED display, so the flight bag was full of spare batteries. Reverse Polish Notation, which I never understood, but it meant you had to really work out how you were going to enter a calculation before you did so. Four functions and a constant. What is £ 20 then in today's money, and what would you get for it?
The Herald also used water-methanol when extra power was needed from the two Darts. The tank held up to 80 kg, and we seemed to carry it around quite often in case it was needed? That's equivalent weight to an adult, which seems a bit wasteful.
In hot summer weather (well, hot by UK standards
) we could actually be WAT-limited at sea-level. So with a full pax load out of Southampton - even just to get to Jersey or Guernsey - we had to do a flapless, water-meth take-off.** To an outside observer, the Dart seemed to make a sort of flapping noise with water-meth.
** [only for those not familiar with Performance]
To improve the single-engine initial climb gradient. The runway at SOU was just long enough to permit the higher take-off speed involved.
Digital Pocket Calculators
Prior to smartphones, the handiest one I ever had was solar powered, but in practice also worked indoors with normal room lighting. Like JW411, I've always been paranoid and bloody-minded about retaining my mental-arithmetic skills, even if it only involves achieving an approximate result. The latter is invaluable for checking that, in the 8-figure result from the calculator, the decimal point is in the right place...
We early users were sometimes sceptical on reliability, and I wonder if anyone else used this test:
0.9 X 12345679 = 11111111.
Going back to about 1970, before such things were cheaply available, the Dart Herald's fuel-quantity gauges were calibrated in imperial gallons, whereas the flow-meters and fuel-used counters were in kilograms. At the end of each sector, prior to refuelling, we would log the arrival fuel in both indicated and calculated amounts. (The "calculated" would be the recorded departure fuel minus the burn-off recorded by the two flowmeters.)
As every schoolboy knows, the SG of kerosene is about 0.8, so an imperial gallon weighs about 8 lb or 3.6 kg. We therefore needed to divide the burn-off in kgs by 3.6. The trick is to divide it first by 4. Then you first add a tenth of that to the result, then an extra hundredth, and (if you really want to!) an extra thousandth.
Who needs calculators?
In hot summer weather (well, hot by UK standards
) we could actually be WAT-limited at sea-level. So with a full pax load out of Southampton - even just to get to Jersey or Guernsey - we had to do a flapless, water-meth take-off.** To an outside observer, the Dart seemed to make a sort of flapping noise with water-meth.** [only for those not familiar with Performance]
To improve the single-engine initial climb gradient. The runway at SOU was just long enough to permit the higher take-off speed involved.
Digital Pocket Calculators
Prior to smartphones, the handiest one I ever had was solar powered, but in practice also worked indoors with normal room lighting. Like JW411, I've always been paranoid and bloody-minded about retaining my mental-arithmetic skills, even if it only involves achieving an approximate result. The latter is invaluable for checking that, in the 8-figure result from the calculator, the decimal point is in the right place...
We early users were sometimes sceptical on reliability, and I wonder if anyone else used this test:
0.9 X 12345679 = 11111111.
Going back to about 1970, before such things were cheaply available, the Dart Herald's fuel-quantity gauges were calibrated in imperial gallons, whereas the flow-meters and fuel-used counters were in kilograms. At the end of each sector, prior to refuelling, we would log the arrival fuel in both indicated and calculated amounts. (The "calculated" would be the recorded departure fuel minus the burn-off recorded by the two flowmeters.)
As every schoolboy knows, the SG of kerosene is about 0.8, so an imperial gallon weighs about 8 lb or 3.6 kg. We therefore needed to divide the burn-off in kgs by 3.6. The trick is to divide it first by 4. Then you first add a tenth of that to the result, then an extra hundredth, and (if you really want to!) an extra thousandth.
Who needs calculators?
Last edited by Chris Scott; 12th Feb 2017 at 12:39. Reason: Ling to photo added.
T I've always been paranoid and bloody-minded about retaining my mental-arithmetic skills, even if it only involves achieving an approximate result. The latter is invaluable for checking that, in the 8-figure result from the calculator, the decimal point is in the right place...
"Mildly" Eccentric Stardriver
The F27 (Dart) also carried water-meth. I forget the exact quantity, but in my company we carried sufficient for two take-offs and one go-around.
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Vickers viscount as well.We called it wet power for the water meth as I remember,as we carried full tanks and we included it in addition to the zero fuel mass
I can still remember the green painted blob on the torque gauges when we called wet power on all four.
Rgds,
M
I can still remember the green painted blob on the torque gauges when we called wet power on all four.
Rgds,
M
Quote from JW411:
"All of the British-built aircraft that I ever flew had a water humidifier system."
...as did Bergerie's VC10. Haven't checked my course notes, but I'm under the impression the water was from the aircraft's Domestic Water system? The F/Es, ever mindful of corrosion, etc., were not overly enamoured with it. Being much cleverer than us pilots, they knew that frost was building up on the inside of the fuselage skin, unseen because of the ceiling panels. Cue a massive outpouring of melt in the descent, particularly into tropical airfields - most of all into humid, sea-level airfields like Lagos - if it wasn't switched off a couple of hours before top of descent. They used the unheated portions of the cockpit side windows to gauge how much frost might be building up, and when to switch then humidifiers off.
The other idiosyncrasy of the VC10 was that the air conditioning system, in addition to having air-cycle machines for cooling the conditioned air, also had freon refrigerator packs which were used when the OAT was particularly high. In the climb, if the humidifiers were inadvertently switched on before the 'frig packs were switched off, snow would emanate from the punkah louvres.
Re punkah louvres (or fresh-air vents, as the younger generation of cabin crew insisted on calling them), I think it was Mr Boeing that first did away with them in the 1980s? Not sure about the current products off the production lines at Toulouse and Hamburg, but the louvres were still installed on the A320s through the 1990s. They're a great boon when one passenger is feeling hot, but his neighbour isn't.
"All of the British-built aircraft that I ever flew had a water humidifier system."
...as did Bergerie's VC10. Haven't checked my course notes, but I'm under the impression the water was from the aircraft's Domestic Water system? The F/Es, ever mindful of corrosion, etc., were not overly enamoured with it. Being much cleverer than us pilots, they knew that frost was building up on the inside of the fuselage skin, unseen because of the ceiling panels. Cue a massive outpouring of melt in the descent, particularly into tropical airfields - most of all into humid, sea-level airfields like Lagos - if it wasn't switched off a couple of hours before top of descent. They used the unheated portions of the cockpit side windows to gauge how much frost might be building up, and when to switch then humidifiers off.
The other idiosyncrasy of the VC10 was that the air conditioning system, in addition to having air-cycle machines for cooling the conditioned air, also had freon refrigerator packs which were used when the OAT was particularly high. In the climb, if the humidifiers were inadvertently switched on before the 'frig packs were switched off, snow would emanate from the punkah louvres.
Re punkah louvres (or fresh-air vents, as the younger generation of cabin crew insisted on calling them), I think it was Mr Boeing that first did away with them in the 1980s? Not sure about the current products off the production lines at Toulouse and Hamburg, but the louvres were still installed on the A320s through the 1990s. They're a great boon when one passenger is feeling hot, but his neighbour isn't.
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Chris Scott
Mr Boeing did not do away with fresh air vents, they became an option - IIRC Delta always had their "Gaspers" on 757s & 767s and Canadair (Bombardier), probably because they were standard on the Challenger bizjets, still provides them on all their CRJs and even on their CSeries aircraft.
My last design work at BAC Hurn in the late 70s was on a 1-11 for RAe, a Type AP/H. This had every modern Navaid known to man including Decca Navigator, Decca Type 72 Doppler Radar (with a linked TANS), LORAN and, IIRC, a huge Litton IRS. When I saw my first L aser IRS at Boeing a year later, I couldn't believe how small it was.
Mr Boeing did not do away with fresh air vents, they became an option - IIRC Delta always had their "Gaspers" on 757s & 767s and Canadair (Bombardier), probably because they were standard on the Challenger bizjets, still provides them on all their CRJs and even on their CSeries aircraft.
My last design work at BAC Hurn in the late 70s was on a 1-11 for RAe, a Type AP/H. This had every modern Navaid known to man including Decca Navigator, Decca Type 72 Doppler Radar (with a linked TANS), LORAN and, IIRC, a huge Litton IRS. When I saw my first L aser IRS at Boeing a year later, I couldn't believe how small it was.
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The best thing was having pax up to the Flight Deck. We met lots of interesting people. We could put little kids on out knees and pretend to fly the aircraft. On really long haul ops visitors kept you awake.
Exaviator,
Ah, the 4-course range approach. Had forgotten about them. I think there were a couple left in the US when I started instrument training. Pretty sure it was covered in the Zweng manual and we may have taken a run at a few in the hissing, lurching C-8 Link but fortunately, I never had to wrestle a real one...can't say I regret it !
Fixed-azimuth ADF...that was also a mental gymnastics event. :-))
Ah, the 4-course range approach. Had forgotten about them. I think there were a couple left in the US when I started instrument training. Pretty sure it was covered in the Zweng manual and we may have taken a run at a few in the hissing, lurching C-8 Link but fortunately, I never had to wrestle a real one...can't say I regret it !
Fixed-azimuth ADF...that was also a mental gymnastics event. :-))
Quote from bafanguy:
"Fixed-azimuth ADF...that was also a mental gymnastics event."
Surely you can't be talking about relative-bearing indicators? Easy-peasy...
Quote from ICT_SLB:
"My last design work at BAC Hurn in the late 70s was on a 1-11 for RAe, a Type AP/H. This had every modern Navaid known to man including Decca Navigator, Decca Type 72 Doppler Radar (with a linked TANS), LORAN and, IIRC, a huge Litton IRS. When I saw my first L aser IRS at Boeing a year later, I couldn't believe how small it was."
AP/H?
My first experience of INS was around 1976 when my airline retrofitted dual-INS (Litton) to its B707-320C fleet and retired its specialist navigators. A few years later the airline started acquiring DC-10-30s, with triple-INS. They also had PMS - a rather crude tool for descent guidance - but no FMS.
My first experience of la ser IRS (Honeywell?) was in 1984 on the A310, the two of which we operated mainly between London and various parts of west Africa, plus Lusaka. You'll appreciate that pilots are not normally aware of the size of individual black boxes in the electronics bay, but the drift performance was noticeably better than the old INS.
The A310 also had FMS with radio position-updating (pairs of DMEs), although the shortage of DMEs in Africa meant that we were navigating on IRS most of the time. The Smiths FMS was, IMHO, more than a match for the Sperry/Honeywell in the early, lateral-nav-only configuration, but the two a/c were sold before Smiths made V-NAV available.
We soon got used to taking the FMS's display of PPOS on the CRT ND (Navigation Display) with a pinch of salt over Africa, where the nav-accuracy assessment was almost invariably low. Unsurprisingly, the presidential palaces in African countries are often within a mile or two of the runway approaches. In the normal absence of radar vectoring from ATC, it was all too easy to fly near one when self-positioning for finals on Rwy 10 at Lusaka, for example, if the (green) FMS line on the ND was taken too literally after several hours with no radio updating.
"Fixed-azimuth ADF...that was also a mental gymnastics event."
Surely you can't be talking about relative-bearing indicators? Easy-peasy...
Quote from ICT_SLB:
"My last design work at BAC Hurn in the late 70s was on a 1-11 for RAe, a Type AP/H. This had every modern Navaid known to man including Decca Navigator, Decca Type 72 Doppler Radar (with a linked TANS), LORAN and, IIRC, a huge Litton IRS. When I saw my first L aser IRS at Boeing a year later, I couldn't believe how small it was."
AP/H?
My first experience of INS was around 1976 when my airline retrofitted dual-INS (Litton) to its B707-320C fleet and retired its specialist navigators. A few years later the airline started acquiring DC-10-30s, with triple-INS. They also had PMS - a rather crude tool for descent guidance - but no FMS. My first experience of la ser IRS (Honeywell?) was in 1984 on the A310, the two of which we operated mainly between London and various parts of west Africa, plus Lusaka. You'll appreciate that pilots are not normally aware of the size of individual black boxes in the electronics bay, but the drift performance was noticeably better than the old INS.
The A310 also had FMS with radio position-updating (pairs of DMEs), although the shortage of DMEs in Africa meant that we were navigating on IRS most of the time. The Smiths FMS was, IMHO, more than a match for the Sperry/Honeywell in the early, lateral-nav-only configuration, but the two a/c were sold before Smiths made V-NAV available.
We soon got used to taking the FMS's display of PPOS on the CRT ND (Navigation Display) with a pinch of salt over Africa, where the nav-accuracy assessment was almost invariably low. Unsurprisingly, the presidential palaces in African countries are often within a mile or two of the runway approaches. In the normal absence of radar vectoring from ATC, it was all too easy to fly near one when self-positioning for finals on Rwy 10 at Lusaka, for example, if the (green) FMS line on the ND was taken too literally after several hours with no radio updating.
"Surely you can't be talking about relative-bearing indicators? Easy-peasy... "
Chris Scott,
Yep, that's what I'm talkin' about. :-)))
MH +/- RB=MB ? I'm going back many decades so I won't vouch for the accuracy of my recall. But...I just never wanted to work that hard.
Along came the ADF with an RMI card and I was saved !!
Truth is, we just don't do all that much ADF stuff here in the States anyway but those unreasonable people at the Puzzle Palace wanted to see you dance the dance...so we did.
Chris Scott,
Yep, that's what I'm talkin' about. :-)))
MH +/- RB=MB ? I'm going back many decades so I won't vouch for the accuracy of my recall. But...I just never wanted to work that hard.
Along came the ADF with an RMI card and I was saved !!
Truth is, we just don't do all that much ADF stuff here in the States anyway but those unreasonable people at the Puzzle Palace wanted to see you dance the dance...so we did.