ChristiaanJ
Years before (mid '60s) I'd bought an ex-RAF vacuum-driven artificial horizon in one of those surplus shops in London, dated by a War Ministry label to 1939. I'd already run it once with a vacuum cleaner (oh, the vandalism the young get up to...).
Since the Brit had some vacuum-driven instruments, there was a test bench in the Filton lab for such instruments. So I brought in my ancient horizon, had it tested.... and it still met the basic specs! They made them well in those days....
You young vandal you Christian. I'm just conjuring up the visual, a young ChristiaanJJ, vacuum cleaner hose in one hand and horizon in the other, the gyro whirring round at warp speed. (What voltage and frequency suction air did you use
? HAHAHA).
I seem to remember the Chipmunk used to use a cute little 'vaccy' gyro horizon. I pulled many of these apart during my RAF training. (Sometimes I even managed to get the odd one or two back together and working again).
Best regards
Dude
