PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Autoland capability
View Single Post
Old 27th January 2006 | 07:34
  #10 (permalink)  
scottishbeefer
 
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 135
Likes: 0
From: UK
The chaps at Boscombe have trialled a system to automatically land a helo on the back of a ship (potentially useful in bad wx/nt) - they used a modified Wessex. The a/c comes to the hover, manually or using the FCS in transition down mode. Once established a laser tracks the rotor disc attitude, while a computer takes over the flying controls, and using info from the laser/disc moves the a/c over the deck and lands it. Naturally, this is a grossly simplified explanation.

What could be simpler?! You'd need to be confident in the system to let it land you at night I suggest.

Still only trialled - no in-service date (if ever).
scottishbeefer is offline