James E. Tomayko "Computers Take Flight: A History of NASA's Pioneering Digital Fly-By-Wire Project" United States Government Printing | English | 2000 | ISBN: 0160590531 | 192 pages | PDF | 1 MB Relates the process by which digital fly-by-wire was developed at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in California from 1971 to 1985. Discusses fly-by-wire's contributions to the space shuttle and the process by which the technology was transformed to other agencies and industry. This book tells the significant story of the F-8 Digital Fly-By-Wire project, which pioneered an important new technology that paved the way for use of digital flight control on the F-18, F-16, F-117, B-2, F-22, and Boeing 777 as well as other aircraft. It is a story not just of overcoming technical difficulties but of the people who did so and their triumphs. Review: In a conventional aircraft, the pilot's commands are transmitted to control surfaces using hydraulic lines or other mechanical links. In a fly-by-wire aircraft, commands are converted to signals that travel over a computer network to somewhere in the vicinity of the control surface, where they are translated back into mechanical action. In effect, the pilot no longer directly controls the aircraft; rather, a computer program takes the pilot's requests into account while controlling the aircraft. This places a huge burden on the designers of the control system: it must not suffer from a general hardware or software failure during flight. Computers Take Flight is about NASA's effort to build the first completely fly-by-wire airplane. It's not so much a story as a description of a sequence of related events; this doesn't make for particularly compelling reading. However, it's still interesting and even exciting when Tomayko describes some of the things that went wrong during flights (happily, no injuries or major damage occurred during any of the early fly-by-wire tests). Some of the best things about this book are the introduction and conclusion. The introduction is a brief history of flight, including a fascinating description of the Wright brothers' real contribution to aviation: they realized that an airplane does not have to be inherently stable, but rather, the system comprised of the plane and pilot needs to be stable. The conclusion describes the technology transition from NASA, first to the US military and then to commercial airplanes such as the Airbus 320 and Boeing 777. Contents Table of Contents Acknowledgments Foreword Preface Introduction Chapter One The Flight-Control Problem The Essence of "the Flying Problem" The Eright Solution The Return of the Stability Paradigm The Benefits of Abandoning Inherent Stability The Concept of Active Control Active Control in History Bicycles The German A-4 Rocket (V-2) The Avro CF-105 Arrow The Apollo Lunar Module Chapter Two Maturation of the Enabling Technologies Sensors The Role of the Computer Effectors and Actuators Analog Versus Digital At NASA Headquarters Finding the Testbed Airplane The Split into Phases Chapter Three The History of Reliability in Computers Von Nuemann's Approach to Reliability and Its Impact on Later Designs Redundancy and Backup: the Apollo Experience The Reliability Scheme for Phase I of NASA's Digital Fly-by-Wire Project Draper Laboratory Becomes Directly Involved Developing the Flight Software Chapter Four Installing the Apollo Digital Computer System The Backup Flight System System Inputs: Sensors and Flight Controls The End of the Line: Actuators Ready to Fly Chapter Five KSTART The Pilot Checklist in the Digital Era Early Phase I Flights: Expanding the Envelope Flights with the Side-stick Pilot Familiarizations On to Phase II Chapter Six The Short-Lived Phase IB Finding an Airplane Finding a Computer AP-101 Woes Software The Computer Bypass System and New Actuators Preparing the F-8 for Flight Chapter Seven The First Space Shuttle Support Flights The Remotely Augmented Vehicle A Second Round of Shuttle Support Adaptive Control Laws Sensor-Analytic-Redundancy Management REBUS: REsident Back-Up Software Denouement Chapter Eight Technology Transition The Certification of Commercial Fly-By-Wire Airliners The F-8 Digital Fly-By-Wire Project in the History of Technology What These Engineers Knew and How They Knew It The Technological Legacy The Human Legacy Appendix: DFBW F-8C Flight Logs Phase I Phase II Glossary Bibliography A Note on Sources Interviews Printed or Manuscript Sources About the Author Index The NASA History Series Reference Works, NASA SP-4000 Management Histories, NASA SP-4100 Project Histories, NASA SP-4200 Center Histories, NASA SP-4300 General Histories, NASA SP-4400 To start download click HERE: |
Computers Take Flight: A History of NASA's Pioneering Digital Fly-By-Wire Project
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