Patent GB-260260-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in stabilizing apparatus for aircraft and vessels
IPC: B64D45/00
Filed: 1926-10-19
Abstract: 260,260. Mazade, M. A. Oct. 24, 1925, [Convention date]. Steering and manoeuvring automatically. - An automatic stabilizing or steering device for ships, submarines, &c. comprising a vane which actuates the controls proportionately to the displacement of the machine or vessel from its mean position, has means for applying a correcting factor to the proportioning device depending upon the speed or the acceleration of the displacement or both. Fig. 5 shows a lateral stabilizer for aircraft wherein an arm 70 of a wind vane of the type described in Specification 192,764 cooperates with contact sectors 73, 74 in electrical circuits which control the valves of a pneumatic servo-motor for actuating the controls. An arm 84 pivoted at 82 and moving with the servo-motor has a pin 85 engaging a slot 86 in a disc 87 loose on a shaft 75 so as to act as a follow-up device. This disc has lugs 88 supporting a worm 89 engaging a worm wheel 90 on a disc 72 loose on the shaft 75 and carrying the sectors 73, 74. The worm 89 is connected by a flexible shaft to a shaft 60 which moves proportionately to the angular speed of displacement of the aircraft from the mean position, thereby altering the position of the disc 72 relatively to the disc 87. The shaft 60 has a drum 59, Fig. 2, connected by cords 57 to the collars 56 of two governors mounted on two ratchet wheels 46, 47 driven each in one direction only by pawls connected respectively to two loosely mounted wheels 39, 40 driven by a wheel 38 on the shaft of an electric motor 20. This motor has a worm 19 gearing with a wheel 18 on a disc 17 having two contact sectors 14, 15 cooperating with a contact 13 on a pendulum 10. The motor has a separately excited field and as the aircraft tilts a circuit is completed through one or other of the sectors 14, 15 to actuate one or other of two switches 28, 29 to direct a current m one direction or the other through the motor armature whereby the space between the sectors 14, 15 is continually being brought opposite the contact 13. The motor is of small inertia and consequently its speed is proportional to the angular speed of displacement of the aircraft, and the shape of the drum 59 is so chosen that its angular velocity is proportional to that of the motor shaft. When it is desired to add a correction for angular acceleration, as may be necessary in heavy aircraft, an arm on the shaft 60 is caused to cooperate with contact sectors on a disc similar to the disc 17, the speed of its restoring motor being registered by a second drum through mechanism similar to that shown in Fig. 2. The shaft of this drum drives a worm 114 carried bv the disc 72, Fig. 8, and engaging a worm-wheel 115 on a third disc 112 which carries the contacts 73, 74. A mercury level may replace the pendulum 10 or a magnetic compass acting through photoelectric cells may be used when controlling the direction in azimuth, two cells registering the speed of displacement. The speed of displacement may be registered by the means shown to the left of Fig. 27 (Cancelled) described below. Fig. 12 shows a modification in which the speed of displacement is registered by the anemometric vane, the disc 161 corresponding to the disc 17, Fig. 1, and the disc 162 is a triple disc device movable according to the angular displacement, speed, and acceleration of the aircraft. The motor 20 and disc 161 may be eliminated, a pinion on the shaft 163 driving the speed indicating device. When the vanes are sufficiently powerful to actuate the controlls without a servomotor the corrections of the speed and acceleration indicators are applied by altering the angular setting of the vanes, for example a worm gear similar to that described may rotate the vane arm about the pivot 163. Instead of using a single servo-motor for actuating a control, the elements responsive to displacement, speed, and acceleration may control three servo-motors whose motions are combined through differential gears, or the servo-motors may control a main servo-motor. The Specification as open to inspection under Sect. 91 (3) (a) comprises also the following subject-matter. A Lateral stabilizer is described in which the arm 70 of Figs. 5 and 8 is replaced bv a mercury level which controls the servomotor in accordance with the displacement. For longitudinal stabilization a pendulum device may register the angular displacements while a wind vane may be used to register the speed of displacement. Fig. 27 (Cancelled) shows a gyroscope on a shaft 152 which actuates at one end a contact 13 of a speed indicating device similar to that shown in Figs. 1 and 2, and at the other end a contact 159 for controlling the main servomotor, this contact cooperating with sectors on the disc 158 of a triple disc device 156, 157, 158 loose on the shaft 152. Where a compass and photo-electric cells are used, two other cells may register the speed of displacement. This subjectmatter does not appear in the Specification as accepted.