without operative datum shift
Is that like dressing on the right of the left?
Only if you wrap a piece of bike chain around your todger and give it a 3° yank every time you sit down....
Oh, Q Cam, K gear.
'twas
Cam K and Q
feel, Courtney!
Datum shift was a simple system which was nothing more than a bit of bike chain connecting part of the main undercarriage to the tailplane 'Hobson Motor' input system. As the landing gear extended, the CG move forward and the 'datum shift' chain automatically applied compensating nose-up tailplane incidence. Simple, and clever, like much of Mr Folland's finest!
Cam K varied the tailplane input value from the control column in a non-linear manner, so that the aircraft was less twitchy at small control deflexions whilst giving sufficient pitch control for landing; Q feel sensed dynamic pressure to increase stick force at high TAS. There was also a 'scissor restrictor' to prevent idiot senior officers pump-handling the control column so violently that the TPI became out of phase relative to the control column. A complete waste of time.....
All the analogue magic, cogs, springs and bits of chain of the well-loved G-nat longitudinal control system would these days be simple digital tweaks in a FBW system.
Then there was Fuse 13.....