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The Art of the Helicopter John Watkinson - Karatunov.net

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must be in steady flight when <strong>the</strong> DI is aligned to <strong>the</strong> compass or <strong>the</strong> gyro axis will be<br />

incorrect and it will be set to repeat <strong>the</strong> compass turning error.<br />

7.13 <strong>The</strong> gyromag<strong>net</strong>ic compass<br />

More sophisticated DIs can tie <strong>the</strong>mselves to a mag<strong>net</strong>ic flux gate compass to produce<br />

a gyromag<strong>net</strong>ic compass which combines <strong>the</strong> best features <strong>of</strong> both devices. <strong>The</strong> flux<br />

gate compass was described in section 7.5. <strong>The</strong> tying process is heavily filtered so that<br />

compass errors during manoeuvres do not affect <strong>the</strong> reading. Gyromag<strong>net</strong>ic compasses<br />

have <strong>the</strong> advantage that <strong>the</strong>y do not need to be reset.<br />

Figure 7.16 shows how <strong>the</strong> DI follows <strong>the</strong> mag<strong>net</strong>ic compass. <strong>The</strong> signals from <strong>the</strong> flux<br />

gate compass are applied to a set <strong>of</strong> three coils encircling <strong>the</strong> shaft driving <strong>the</strong> display<br />

card in <strong>the</strong> DI. On <strong>the</strong> shaft is a single secondary coil. When <strong>the</strong> DI is accurately aligned<br />

with <strong>the</strong> compass, this coil will be transverse to <strong>the</strong> resultant flux <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> three input coils<br />

and so no voltage will be induced in it. However, if any angular difference develops, a<br />

signal will be induced in <strong>the</strong> secondary coil and this can be amplified and used to drive<br />

torque motors that apply a rolling torque to <strong>the</strong> inner gimbal <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> gyro. <strong>The</strong> gyro will<br />

precess this torque into yaw so that <strong>the</strong> display card will turn, and with it <strong>the</strong> secondary<br />

Fig. 7.16 A slave DI that follows a flux gate compass. If <strong>the</strong> DI reading and <strong>the</strong> flux gate output are different,<br />

a torque motor precesses <strong>the</strong> DI until <strong>the</strong> two have <strong>the</strong> same indication.<br />

Control 281

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