- Email: [email protected]
Flight test instrumentation
BOOK REVIEWS FLIGHT TEST INSTRUMENTATION,edited by M. A. Perry. 153 pages, diagrams, illustrations, 6 x 9 in. Oxford, Pergamon Press Ltd., 1961. Price, $8.50. This attractively printed little volume bears the imprimatur of the International Series of Monographs in Aeronautics and Astronautics which issue under the distinguished names of Th. yon K~rm~n and H. L. Dryden. The contents of the present volume cover a symposium held in 1960 under the auspices of the Department of Flight of the College of Aeronautics, Cranfield, England. The symposium, in turn, stemmed from the process of collecting material for courses in flight-test technique at the College of Aeronautics. The volume comprises papers by fifteen authors which cover the conventional techniques employed in testing subsonic aircraft in Great Britain. For the most part these represent an art which is less elaborate and less highly automated than that currently employed in America. The reviewer is struck by the frequent references to component supply from this side of the Atlantic. The style of the papers, for the most part, is discursive. The discussions are almost entirely nonmathematical. The level of presentation is such that an able junior in one of our engineering schools should not have undue difficulty with the subject material. On the whole, this volume presents an interesting insight into the state of development of test instrumentation in Great Britain in 1960 and deserves attention for this if no other reason. CLIFFORn MANNAI General Electric Co.
INF.RFIAI GUInANCE, edited by George R. Pitman, .Jr. 481 pages, diagrams, 6 x 9 in. New York, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1962. Price, $18.50. The book under review stems from a twoweek course on inertial guidance offered by the Engineering and Physical Science Extension
Office of the University of California at Los Angeles. The fourteen authors who gave th~ lectures and wrote the chapters are leading authorities on this subject in the Southern California missile industry: Aerospace Corporation, Aeronutronic Division (Ford Motor Co.). Autonetics (North American Aviation, Inc), Hughes Aircraft Co., Litton Systems, and Space Technology Laboratories. This volume is a prominent representative of the new trend in technical book publishing, whereby a collection of papers related to a specific technical area and written by several specialists is published as chapters of a book. The unquestionable advantage is the up-to-date dissemination of the latest highly pertinent technical information which is to be weighted against the lack of uniform style on one hand and sometimes the lack of scholarly treatment on the other. Admittedly, however, books constructed along the classical lines are of less immediate use for those who "have to make them fly" than this volume. The editor's difficult job has been performed remarkably well by relating the chapters and by attempting to eliminaie repetitions. The subiect of the book is navigation: directing the movements of a vehicle from one point to another. This process consists of two operations: firstly, the determination of the position and velocity of the vehicle and secondly, the guidance operation, that is, modification of the course to reach the destination. (The terminology is not generally accepted as the title of the book and its content show.) One of the most significant recent technological achievements is the applicability of the idea of inertial navigation. As is so often the case. the basic principle is rather simple and straightforward, but to put it into practice, considering all the complicated details of the system, is another matter'. The idea of inertial navigation is that if the acceleration vector of the vehich: is measured during the motion and its single and double time integrals are computed, then from these integrals the velocity and position vector at any instani can be deduced. The powerful
403
INF.RFIAI GUInANCE, edited by George R. Pitman, .Jr. 481 pages, diagrams, 6 x 9 in. New York, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1962. Price, $18.50. The book under review stems from a twoweek course on inertial guidance offered by the Engineering and Physical Science Extension
Office of the University of California at Los Angeles. The fourteen authors who gave th~ lectures and wrote the chapters are leading authorities on this subject in the Southern California missile industry: Aerospace Corporation, Aeronutronic Division (Ford Motor Co.). Autonetics (North American Aviation, Inc), Hughes Aircraft Co., Litton Systems, and Space Technology Laboratories. This volume is a prominent representative of the new trend in technical book publishing, whereby a collection of papers related to a specific technical area and written by several specialists is published as chapters of a book. The unquestionable advantage is the up-to-date dissemination of the latest highly pertinent technical information which is to be weighted against the lack of uniform style on one hand and sometimes the lack of scholarly treatment on the other. Admittedly, however, books constructed along the classical lines are of less immediate use for those who "have to make them fly" than this volume. The editor's difficult job has been performed remarkably well by relating the chapters and by attempting to eliminaie repetitions. The subiect of the book is navigation: directing the movements of a vehicle from one point to another. This process consists of two operations: firstly, the determination of the position and velocity of the vehicle and secondly, the guidance operation, that is, modification of the course to reach the destination. (The terminology is not generally accepted as the title of the book and its content show.) One of the most significant recent technological achievements is the applicability of the idea of inertial navigation. As is so often the case. the basic principle is rather simple and straightforward, but to put it into practice, considering all the complicated details of the system, is another matter'. The idea of inertial navigation is that if the acceleration vector of the vehich: is measured during the motion and its single and double time integrals are computed, then from these integrals the velocity and position vector at any instani can be deduced. The powerful
403