Congratulations on your amazing work to get both a FIN1010 and an RPMD into full working order, and also your ingenuity in interfacing them to a convincing display set-up. Thank you also for bringing back memories of the good old days when all of this was cutting edge technology. You would have made an excellent Ferranti engineer !
Hi - many thanks for the positive words! Yes, I really like these systems and despite having seen lot of different technology, these are still my most admired devices! Really sad to see, that much of the kow-how is lost... By the way: Are you the author of the "Inertial Navigation - 40 years of evolution"? Great paper!
@@finner4463 Yes, indeed - but it seems a long time ago. But some of the know-how continues - a few of my former colleagues are still making very successful laser gyro inertial systems in Edinburgh, although the company is now called Leonardo.
@@anthonyking7131 Wow - in the past I tried various approaches to reach out for you without success ;-) Yes, there are still clever engineers in Leonardo active(had an invitation to visit them after I published the video - was shown what remained from the INS branch). But the mechanical systems with the floated gyros on the gimbals, the analog computer paired with the 32bit digital one where way ahead of time in the 1970ties when 18 bit computers filled a fridge size cabinet. I collected lot of documentation from various places, but I wish I could have more ;-) You can get in touch any time using my private email erik -at- baigar -dot- de.
Thanks for this video. My father was head of the department at Ferranti that designed the inertial navigation systems for Ariane, Tornado and Harrier. During the Falkland War his department developed systems to allow Army Harriers to fly from ships as the Army Harrier navigation system assumed the plane was stationery when the system started which was not the case on a ship. There might be someone in Edinburgh who would have more information. My father died a few years ago he would be 85 now.
Hi and thanks for your comment - the equipment to align the Harrier's INS at sea was called FINRAE I think and I have even been to Edinburgh, but unfortunately the era of the INS systems is long over and almost all experts are retired. Even the nice tools for assembly, alignment and test are meanwhile gone - I am still trying hard to preserve what I can get hands on! And yes, those platforms have been used on Ariane 1-3 (and even earlier on Europa already) and where one reason why Ariane earned her reputation of being a very accurate satellite launcher. Best wishes...
Thanks - yes, must have been a good time there! Anything you may want to share as I am keen on any stuff from the old days (I am trying to preserve as much as possible for posteriority - simply get in touch erik -at- baigar -dot- de)?
@@alecwood1282 Yeah, but that might also be highly interesting as the Ariane 3 and 4 used these laser gyros ;-) As mentioned anyting related to the now defunc INS dept is fascinating to me (never worked in that area, just a hobby ;-)).
Yes, you are absolutely right. To work properly, mechanics, electronics and the computer all have to be perfect! During fixing these systems, I often wondered about some feature just discovering later that evarything serves a purpose! The floated gyros in these units would be worth a video on their own! Thanks for watching and your feedback!
Hi Erik. Was absolutely lovely to meet you today at the South Wales Aviation Museum. Elliott sent me the link to this video. Wow absolutely brilliant. For me being an Engineman on Tornado, it was mind blowing but also totally fascinating. If you are ever down here again near Wales, please pop in and say hello. Kindest Regards. Martin
Hi Martin, thanks for the positive feedback! Really enjoyed the Museum with the access to a lot of cockpits and chatting to the experienced people there (the stories and experience from these days is as interesting and fascinating as technology itself!). Will be happy to stay in touch (reach out any time via email erik -at- baigar -dot- de if you want) and keep up the great work in St. Athan!
This is beyond amazing, I am astounded by your ingenuity. Thank you so much for doing this work and bringing us this excellent video of a cold war MMD INS.
Thanks for your positive words - always great to get such feedback. Currently I am working to make the system battery powerd, so it can be easily carried on board a car. Hopefully I will have some new video material end of this year... So stay tuned and again many thanks for watching ;-)
Thanks for your positive words. Bringing the units together is indeed lot of fun. Ongoing work are connection of an altimeter, an original attitude inidcator and a magnetic compass for automatic heading entry at startup. End of April I will show the units in working condition on the vintage computer festival in Munich - www.vcfe.org/D/. There I am also curios that the feedback will be ;-)
Hi Ciaran, no currently there are no plans to also connect the CRPMD: I had one of these beasts and FIN data input into this is simpler than to control the RPMD, but to fully activate the CRPMD (esp. the radar overlay) lot of reverse engineering would be necessary. So I skipped this project and instead I connected an attitude indicator and the altimeter is work in progress. Next to come is a interface for the HSI...
Wow - 100 comments! Thanks for all the feedback ;-) Meanwhile I have two fully restored, working FIN101X units and a stock of 3 not yet completely restored and having various faults. Got in touch with lot of exciting people during my work on those and during related research. Similar inertial platforms have been used on the Nimrod, Jaguar, Harrier aircraft; they have been in space on the Europa rockets and they made the Ariane 1-3 the most accurate space launch vehicle (two platforms per rocket). Other applications included measurements for deep well inspection, gunnery equipment and probably some others! The story is going on ;-)
+Ice Skater Thanks for the compliments - and you are absolutely right: I believe that the know how is lost already. I did a lot of research and tried to get in touch with someone who worked on these systems and I had not any success (the design was completed around 40 years ago). In the meantime I have quite a good understanding on how the unit works and I fixed all the electronics issues (two units achive alignment status "0", but I still have a defective gyroscope in one of the units). I am also still unclear on how the tweaking (attachment of balancing weights, determining trimming electronics components for the various corrections) was done in the factory. I guess, without this knowledge and/or a good plan, an attempt to change a gyroscope may lead to a unit of very low accuracy. Thus the next step is to build a gyro tester which will help me in characterizing gyroscopes and later in aligning a new one (which I obtained via eBay already) within the azimuth cluster.
FIN ner Interesting. I just bought two older Gyros. One probably not so good but the other is for the bendix polar path compass system which enabled airlines to fly polar routes like London to Anchorage. Bought from ebay, they are still in the post. The idea is to make some videos showing earth rotation, finding latitude, how to make a gyrocompass and so forth. At this stage I know next to nothing about gyros but history of science is interesting as is knowing how things work compared to reading about it. Repairing an inertial navigation gyro? Well I can see already that you like challenges and are good at overcoming difficulties. :-)
***** Thanks for your messages. I have seen them - the Bendix system also looks very interesting especially that it is working in polar regions sounds interesting. My navigator e.g. only works up to 85deg... Great to know, that there are others out there interested in such stuff...
Great to see, that probably information from the web caused you to look into this technology! I am crossing my fingers, that you will have fun with your new toys. Depends on the gyro, whether repair makes sense. In case of the gyros fitted to the FIN1010/FIN1012 the answer is definitively NO: They are of the floated type (i.e. there is liquid in there supporting the precession axis) and toxic materials (Beryllium) have been used, so I am pretty happy that they are closed and never will open one. Instead I managed to get hands on some NOS (new old stock) spare gyros. Anyhow - even changing the gyro within the platform will be a challange due to lack of jigs and knowledge on how to compute the values for the compensation compionents for accelration crosstalk and anisoelasticity.
Thanks for the feedback and yes, I also think that now is the last time to collect the information and know how remaining. The remaining experts having some know how on this equipment are retiring now and most know how from the development days is lost already :-( But working and fixing this stuff is really exciting and offers phenomenal learning ;-)
Thanks for the great feedback! Highly appreciated! Currently setting up a scanner for scanning the map film for preservation for later generations ;-) Happy transition into the new year 2023!
Hi This brought back many memories as I used to design/ install the F.I.S.T. equipments that were used to test all of these INS including the factory level Test Equipment that tested the lower level sub-assemblies.
Wow - that is amazing! So you are one of the experts with the FIST - would be very interesting to have some more exchange with you; if interested, get in touch via email at erik-at-baigar-dot-de!
Just for those not into technical details: The FIST machines where test sets that existed in different flavours - the FIST-M (M for manual) can be seen in the Video, ruclips.net/video/-EQqfxiGgd8/видео.html but there have been computer controlled variants, too. They intererstingly used the same archaic and completely uniqe computer to test individual boards which had to be plugged into some letterbox like slit for that. An other one, FIST-P (P for platform), was used to test the platforms and from this data it calculated values for compensation components (>15 resistors and capacitors) which where placed onto a trimmer board to make the plaform as perfect as possible. I really tried lot to rescue some of that stuff - sadly without success and recently have been told that all was removed from the old clean rooms :-(
Great video! The reason I looked for videos was I met an 80 year old man in a pub in Edinburgh (home to a lot of Ferranti) recently. He whad been an electronic engineer on this system! Pity I didn’t know about your project before that as I’m sure he would have been happy to talk to you, he was full of interesting info. My dad was also a senior manager at Ferranti and I grew up with the Tornado and Harrier projects and also Eurofighter. On the moving map, my dad used to tell a story that they had land rovers on hills around Edinburgh to triangulate some kind of signal for it during testing and they were driving the moving map around in some kind of vehicle also.
Hi Ian, thanks for your email! Yeah, would have been great getting in touch - that is what is equally exciting as the thechnical project itself: The people who developed these systems are really very clever and have fascinating stories to tell. Yes, they used trucks and test aircraft to look how the systems are working in dynamic situations. It is a major challenge operating such a system in a car (had my FIN1010 with mocing map in my Opel Vectra car already - see my blog www.baigar.de/TornadoComputerUnit/TimeLine.html and scroll down to 6/28/2018). I am still interested in any story/material/information, just get in touch via email at erik-at-baigar-dot-de ;-)
Ferranti developed a ruggedised IN system to aid artillery aiming. It was called PADS (Position Azimuth and Direction System). It was to be carried from the gun, in a vehicle/ camel/ human, to a FOP where information from a laser collimator pointed at the target was input. The software then worked out the aiming for the howitzer. They employed a surveyor company to exactly plot and mark positions around Edinburgh in order to test each production unit. Unfortunately, the company did not ask permission from the council, or anybody else. These markers ended up in people's driveways and in the middle of busy roads. Every day, these land-rovers would spend several minutes parked on private property or holding up traffic. Of course, the council repaired roads, and so many markers were lost!
@@DalgetyBayHypnotherapy Great story! I knew, that a tuck was used for driving around EDI testing the inertial navigation units (and one actually still had some waypoints around EDI in memory), but not familiar with the PADS system. Great information and that shows how stuff can go wrong! If you have more to tell, feel free getting in touch via email any time ;-) Happy Xmas...
I'm reminiscing now.😀 When I first joined Ferranti at Silverknowes, the only production IN was the original Harrier INAS. The Chief Production Engineer was John Flett. Later, they built a big extension for the later models along the corridor. All the actual platforms, no matter the final destination were made in the same area. The 3 main production post-INAS models were for Tornado, Jaguar and PADS, and a smaller run for the Nimrod. There was a separate development area where one-off systems and Space models were developed. For many years thus was run by Ian Muir. In the main systems assembly the Production Manager was Bob Marshall. There were 3 Chief Production Engineers: Walter Duff (Tornado), George McKie (Jaguar) and Jim Morris on (PADS). Walter later became Quality Manager. They were nicknamed the Three Wise Men. There was an awful lot if hilarity in those days. Backing on to this area was the Commissioning clean room. My memory is too hazy to recall the people in there. Shortly after a war between Israel and Egypt, during which many tanks became lost in the desert, there was a push to modify PADS for use on tanks. I remember well the day when two separate sales teams managed to invite generals, together with enormous, armed bodyguards, from both sides to visit Silverknowes on the same morning! We had to post sentries at every intersection in a desperate attempt to keep them from becoming aware of each other. In the end, neither side bought anything. 🤣 I was originally in Procurement but eventually helped to control Mod States. This was frought with difficulty as they tried to use common PCBs when they could. I moved to South Gyle as a Systems Analyst for several years. I returned to Silverknowes, in a corporate capacity as Group Business Systems Mgr for BAE Systems Electronics. By that time, all my old friends had gone.
@@DalgetyBayHypnotherapy Thanks for sharing the memories - must have been exciting times to work for Ferranti. Unfortunately all the electro mechanical stuff is history now (was invited to the factory in around 2017 after they have seen the video - was shown the remaining maintenance and repair equipment in the clean room - but all gone now). Do you have or know some source of pictures of the PADS system? I have collected everything I couls from the airborne systems, but nothing from PADS... erik -at- baigar -dot- de.
Hi Chris, thanks for the positive feedback! Still an exciting hobby and behinf the scenes I am working towards repairing some more of these systems just to keep one running for the years to come ;-)
+FIN ner +FIN ner Seeing how the 35mm film was projected reminds me of how in the field in which I worked, which was flight simulation and control, the piloted simulations used a large moving scale model belt with a TV camera "flying" over it. In many ways, today's digital solutions are so much less imaginative! I like how you have managed to interface some modern micro electronics. I am dealing with restoring far simpler electric systems from that era, which really puts me in awe of what you have achieved.
+DJ Walker Thanks for the positive feedback. I have seen one of the flight simulators with the model belt: It was based on a standard roller blind as used in normal homes - it was just 20m long and the ends connected, making an endless landscape (at least in one direction ;-)). So yes, great what was achieved those days - and keep up your restoring work as well!
Absoloutely fascinating video and the work you have done on researching and reverse engineering these vintage systems is nothing short of remarkable. Thank you for the effort you have put in over the years to allow us to have a glimpse into these amazing and once top-secret computer systems.
Just found this. All so familiar. As a student, one of the first projects I had was to produce a test set for the CDU using a serial computer as used in the IN unit. After graduation worked for a few years on ongoing development of various more advanced computer/memory technologies used in later units.
Wow, that is interesting - do you still remember more details?!! Would be highly interesting knowing more on that one as creating the software for the FIN and the test sets still is a somewhat white area in my research! Please feel free to get in touch any time via email, erik-at-baigar-got-de, this would be highly appreciated!
A lot of effort to get this really fantastic units back to live and combine them with actual technology. My deep respect Mr. Q :-) All the best for your next explorations!
Thanks Jens for the comment! Indeed there is a lot of work in there. In the meantime I fixed three of the units and only keeping them alive is a bigger task than I expected: After some time in storage one always encounters new failures (there are approx. 2500 electronic compontens in there). Next will be connecting an altimeter...
Vielen herzlichen Dank für diesen wirklich interessanten Beitrag!! Ohne den Filmclip hätte ich nie einen Einblick in diese interessante Technik bekommen. Super!
Vielen Dank für das positive Feedback - ja, das ist Sinn und Zweck des Videos: Erhalten und weitergeben einer lang vergessenen Technik ;-) Guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr 2022...
@@finner4463 Wünsche ich Ihnen auch. Nebenbei: Vor noch 20 Jahren hätte ich ewig in irgendwelchen Fachzeitschriften oder Bibliotheken nach Artikeln über diese Technik suchen müssen. Dagegen sind die Möglichkeiten zur Suche geradezu traumhaft. Hätte es ruhig etwas früher geben dürfen...
@@Jooorg Ja - für mich ist einer der größten Vorzüge des Internet, daß man mit Leuten in Kontakt kommt und Sachen sieht, die man früher nicht erreicht hätte. Da haben Sie vollkommen Recht!
Loss for words! Awesome! A modern compact unit is something I have always wanted and would dish out as much as I paid for my Garmin GPS any day to get.
Hi and great you like the video! In the good old days (1974 as Tornado was developed), the FIN1010 alone was 250000UKP (worth a nice house those days). One of the units I saw sold off by Germany's Luftwaffe had still a price tag attached (German conditioning label) in 2010s EURs it read 107000 (for a used unit!). So even at the end of its life it was "little" more expensive than any Garmin ;-)
Thanks for watching and of course for the positive feedback - meanwhile I am working on integration of an altimeter, a drift indicator and a horizontal situation indicator into the setup and to make it all battery powered. So the story will go on. Have a good time...
Many thanks for the positive words! A vintage avionics colleague has got the original HUD display and of course the next step is to bring the navigator and this HUD together ;-) So stay tuned...
The Tornado incorporates lot of technology which was really advanced in the 1970ties. Although I do not like the purpose, these aircraft have been built for, I still enjoy learning about the technologies used (compared to the science fiction films of those days, the Tornado was quite advanced ;-) ).
Thanks for the positive comment which is highly appreciated! But internally the technology is even more amazing - esp. the gyros which required 100s of man years in development ;-)
Thanks for the cool feedback! Yes, also have not seen one yet. But a reason my be, that in the old days it was not easy to take a smart phone into the cockpit and do some recordings during flight ;-) Had the system in my car already and accuracy is not really suitable for navigation in Munich's traffic - he he...
Thanks for the positive words - there has been lot of progress in this project (transparent housings for platform and logger; repaired 3 addieional of the systems etc), but making a good video is a lot of work but hopefully there will be a second one in 2018...
I was watching a bit from the old TV series from the BBC 'Tomorrows World' and an inertial guidance system for use in conjunction with an audio tape deck, was fitted to a VW Beetle. It was a pilot system trialled in Chatham Kent. It wasnt as advanced as this, although based on similar principle (minus the rolling map) but it was impressive and sounded like a modern satnav. This video is fascinating. I once discussed this system with an old RAF colleague (brown job myself). He safly passed away recently, but this brought a smile to my face of a long forgotten chat over a beer....such is the dialogue between old warriors i guess! Thank you!
Hi and thanks for your comment - during my research on this topic I got in touch with quite a lot of the guys from the good old days and it was always fascinating to hear the stories, mishaps and difficulties they encountered in making those things work. Really sad, that lot of this knowledge is going to be lost :-(
Hi David - thanks for your positive feedback; always highly appreciated. Meanwhile learned lot more in repairing some of the units and currently I have one with a failed gyro I am trying to fix which requires development of extensive tooling. So the project still is highly fascinating ;-)
I was also involved in testing the Map Rectification Machine that we produced along with the Cassette Preparation Ground Station that enabled mission planning.
Very nice - so you are talking on the semi-mechanic rectification process used in the UK (compared to the later Commodore-controlled one in Germany)? Would be very cool having some exchange with you - feel free to get in touch at any time via email: erik-at-baigar-dot-de!!
By the way: The ground station for preparing the flight data from a map using a digitizing tablet can be seen in that movie ruclips.net/video/rHjU0sdHRV8/видео.html and a little later, the navigtor in the rear cockpit loads the tape created into the main computer: ruclips.net/video/rHjU0sdHRV8/видео.html. The same type of casette (music tape) was used to load the film specification data, too.
Hi and thanks for the suggestion: Indeed I had the system already in my car on some round trips ;-) Actually energy supply is the problem there! Regarding an own map: Today no one can produce such film maps any more - I even was in touch with ARRI making equipment for creating 35mm film from digital media but they can not do without the black bars between frames (would require a severe firmware change in their equipment)...
Thanks for the feedback - your activities are quite interesting, too! I wonder where you get all those wonderful toys from? If you should come accross one of the FINs (need spares) or perhaps a MCS.920 from GEC, Marconi or Elliott (those are my other big interest, see www.baigar.de/TornadoComputerUnit/index.html) , I'd be highly interested. Please keep up documenting vintage hardware!
It is good to see that there is someone saving past mechanical inertial technology and hardware. I remember reading about the Ferranti gimbaled FIN platform in an Encyclopedia while in high school. It was one of the things that started my own interest in Inertial Guidance Systems. The United States usually destroyed the military systems, however many years ago I traveled the country searching for Government surplus hardware. Later eBay was also a good source of material. One day I hope to form a museum around the different hardware I have mostly saved from the "scrap man". Over thirty years ago, I acquired a few of the Kearfott King Series floated integrating gyroscopes. These are the same gyros that were later licensed and improved by the British firm. I actually opened some of them. Beryllium is actually safe as long as you do not machine, file, grind or chemically react it. I have lived with the metal since the late 1970's with no ill effects.
Cool to see, that there are other nerds out there also taking care on the preservation of at least some of this cool stuff! I am still somewhat scared regarding the Be and I even sent in some material from the platform itself to see whether the unopened gyros or the gimbals are any risk - fortunately they are not! Opened one of the later Litton gyros to inspect it and yes - this is also a masterpiece but I like the Ferranti ones more (theay are more accurate, too) ;-)
No, not heared of this yet! I know that Be in pure metal form is rather harmless - there are even high pitch speakers around which use membranes made from Beryllium. Searching the WEB for Kat-Metal Oy I found this sad picture: goo.gl/images/w952ur Many parts from scrapped Ferranti platforms. . . Extremely sad!
Yes, I saw that photo too. What a terrible waste. Perhaps you can contact them and find out if there is anything left. Even some of the parts might be worth saving. I am too far away in the U.S.
Hi Jerome, yes maybe I am going to write them an email but they process a lot of goods, so I am not optimistic. If you have some pictures of your parts (Be, gyro internals), I'd be highly interested. You can mail me directly at erik -at- baigar.de if you want. Apart from this the very best to the US and have nice X-mas and a good start to the new year...
Thanks! This is a goal for the next five years - although I am making progress in understanding the internals of the FIN1010/1012, repairing and keeping such a device running is a major challenge. This is the most complex device I ever tried to maintain/repair so far: Everything (mechanics, analog/digital electronics, thermal management etc.) has to be perfect for the unit to deliver acceptable performance.
@@jackson0816 Hi - ja, klar. Versuche möglichst viel von den Sachen zu retten, zu dokumentieren und für die Nachwelt zu erhalten. Leider ist das System aus dem Film im Moment nicht einsatzbereit, aber ich arbeite an der Reperatur!
@@finner4463 klasse. Die Technik der moving map finde ich genial. Weißt du wo ich hierzu noch mehr Infos finde? Google Recherche blieb bisher erfolglos.
@@jackson0816 Da gibts nix im Netz - war damals alles geheim und die letzten Experten von damals sind schon länger in Rente. War sehr mühsam da Sachen zusammenzutragen und vieles selber zu analysieren. Bei konkreten Fragen einfach melden, auch per mail unter erik@baigar.de.
amazing tech! But how is the unit aligned with the film (e.g. when moving to another theater), how much map info is stored on one roll, and what happens if you fly past the border of the film?
Thre was "translation data" with the film which had to be loaded into the computer (I recreated that by using my setup to move the display to around 200 known locations/cities and correlating film position (x,y) with the lat/long from google) from than on the computer can calculate the x,y position on the film. In the E-W-direction a calibration is necessary which probably was done by the navigator using his joystick - so upon starting (at a known position) the map display was moved to precisely the right position and that was confirmed by pressing a button. If you watch carefully at 590s, ruclips.net/video/-EQqfxiGgd8/видео.html, in the film rushing by there is a red area showing an entirely red screen with lot of text "OFF MAP" on it. So if outside the film material, the display showed that region of the film - I re-implemented that as well. Map coverage depended on country and sortie - I know of maps covering whole north Europe (UK, DE, CH, A) in three scales or e.g. the Falklands.
Yes absolutely - that is what makes these so fascinating; one can with enough efforts really understand everything and they can also be fixed to component level.
I wonder if you know how clever you are. I worked on Tornado from 1980 as a Airframe Tech “Rigger” and found the electronics in this aircraft very interesting even if I didn’t understand it all. Now it all seems old tech but i often wondered about the tech in these black boxes. Very interesting video.
Thanks for that positive feedback! I think the avionics of Tornado was very advanced for its day and they even had ONE SINGLE network (Panavialink) connecting all the avionics - modern aircraft use a zoo of different ones and that complexity often is a problem. Comparing the cockpit of the space ship "Enterprise" from the 1970ties series with the cockpit of Tornado I think science fiction was reality there ;-)
Many thanks for the positive word - really appreciated! The adventure of fixing my 1012 and documenting/collecting as much information on the series of inertial navigation systems is still ongoing and I guess it will never get boring. In the future I need to make more documentation videos on this field, so stay tuned ;-) Have a good time...
Hi Peter, thanks and cool that your comment is No 125! Yes, these gyros are incredible and over the years I tried to get as much information as possible, which makes them even more admirable to me: E.g. for the space applications in satellites and the Ariane, gyros have been tested over ten years non-stop in space like conditions without any failure. Also lot of highly interesting data had been recorded in fantastic precision experiments: E.g. the balls circulating in the bearings and the cages ensuring their distance in the bearing can be "seen" in the fourier spectrum of the carefully analyzed data obtained in those measurements as these components are rotating at different frequencies than the mass of the gyroscope. Do you have got any other information on those gyros? I'd be still interested in a technical drawing!
Here is an interesting article with a exploded view of the GEC Type 125 gyroscope. I have "lived' with Beryllium for over 35 years and it is quite safe in solid form. Some larger pieces are even attached to the wall in my room. There is a GEC type 126 gyroscope that uses a gas bearing rotor, however I have never been able to locate any. Years ago I visited the U.S. company called Speedring. They manufactured the Type 126 Beryllium gyro float housings. adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1997ESASP.381....9R
Thanks again, also thanks for the link. I did not know this yet - the article I have been referring to, is the NLR report here: repository.tudelft.nl/view/aereports/uuid:248c1a9b-9e2f-45bb-85d4-c5690ad2aec1/ - but searching the NASA database from your link, there are in total four documents with probably very similar content. But the cross section of the gyro shown there is the standard picture which is available on other sources as well. For years I am trying to get in touch with people who worked on this stuff and it quite difficult as all have retired many years ago and I learned recently, that the gyro related equipment at the original factory in Edinburgh was scrapped years ago :-( Thanks again for your comments and the link!
Hopefully we solved the issues - many thanks for the cool pictures. The 125 is indeed made from very nice parts and there is a huge amount of know how in there ;-)
Thanks for the good feedback. Unfortunately my demonstration FIN1012 failed with a gyro fault recently and I decided to take on the task of changing the gyro which involves design of tooling and electronics for getting it properly aligned. Maybe these efforts will be an upcoming video...
2 года назад
you rock!!! i love your video, I know jetart by news, they are sold a Tornado a Harrier for civilian.
Thanks for the kind words ;-) Yes, did some business with JetArt and they also have got interesting parts in their eBay shop. Unfortunately they do not ship out ouf the UK any more since 2015 or so 😞 (Although a complete airframe would be waaaaay to big for my living area).
Yes, indeed. There must be serveral 100 years of manpower in these systems. Design started in the 1950s in the UK for space projects and similar platforms have been used to my knowledge on Ariane 1-3, several satellites, the Nimrod, the SEPECAT Jaguar, the Tornado, a prototype of Concorde, the Harrier and some Phantom F4s. But only the latest systems like the one from Tornado are all-in-one-box solutions. I admire the engineers having designed these and still I am curious and in search how assymbly and initial alignment was done.
Wow this is great. But there is one question remaining, regarding north/south. What If I leave the boundaries of the film. So basically the width? Is the whole map-area separated into stripes, so that the film jumps to a position, that includes my "out-of-bounds" position or is this just the end of the map?
Yeah - absolutley correct: If the current position is outside of the map covered a section is displayed which has a red background and big black letters "OFF MAP" - so easy to recognize.
@@bruennlein No - along the film we have west-east and north/south coverage is implemented by multiple strips. For clarity, I prepared an image showing the map of Europe overlaid with the parts of the film: www.programmer-electronic-control.de/RPMDxplorerMap.jpg - you can see that the films have different height (i.e. scale) and that not the same area is present in all three scales in my film used on this video.
Would it be possible to do DIY maps? I mean using ordinary 35mm camera and color film to do the photos of some maps and then use it in this system. Where are the slide related data stored and how are they input in the system when changing film rolls? I mean the data that tells the system about each slide on the film so the system knows what area is it covering and what scale is it. Do you have links for the manual for this INS system? Can you explain all the switch positions like SH, NR, GPS, INS, MP, TE, G, P1, P2? How can be the INS position updated? Is it possible to do GPS or TACAN or overfly or perhaps AG radar updates to get rid of the error on long flights?
Hi - lot of good questions. Some answers: (1) DIY films are difficult as one always gets the black bars between the pictures which require lot of additional film material for redndant information and increases software complexity. Even discussions with ARRI showed, that the professional film exposure equipment would need a new firmware to to that - to much for a hobby project. (2) Side related data as you call it originally was a table of lat's and long's of the corners of the individual sections and x-poition on the film, e.g. 20 entries like 45°N-46°N, 7°E-15°E @ 2.55m. This table was loaded into the main computer. In my setup I implemented a soft-joystick to freely move the map and display the film position. Navigating to 200 cities and correlating that to google data I created a mapping function. (3) Some information is in the Flight Manual which is available at various companies and even google books had it in the past (covers the mechanical FIN1010) - not the later laser gyro based system which's CDU was used in the movie). (4) In the mechanical FIN1012 of Nimrod, one could simply enter an updated position during flight. In Tornado the navigator had a map display (CRPMD, similar to what you see in the video) but with overlaid ground mapping radar. Using a joystick he was able to align them to match and pressing a button updated the position - so some means of over-fly. (5) The later replacement unit (which by the way can do all the 1010 can do but more and is a drop-in replacement) has GPS with Kalman fusing built in.
Many thanks for your positive comment; End of April there was the vintage computer festival (VCFe) over here in Munich, where I gave 7 live demonstrations of this system. It survived transportation and the three intense days - people there also liked it; Some pictures can be seen here: www.baigar.de/TornadoComputerUnit/TimeLine.html#VCFE18
Danke für die positiven Worte - ja, so eine Welt gibt es aber die community in Sachen (Vintage computing / Intertial Navigation / Avionik) ist echt klein. Gerade bei den Navis ist echt so viel KnowKow verloren gegangen :-(
@@wernerhahn141 Hi - das ist interessant. Wo genau? Hat das IWM einen Link irgendwo bei sich eingestellt? Habe mich schon gewundert, wo das plötzliche Interesse ab dem 23.11. herkam ;-)
In the video you are talking about the modern inertial navigation system using a laser gyro which you appear to actually personally have with you? You have also deconstructed the software for the ferranti system which was analysing and operating the mechanical gyros. Do you therefore have a working knowledge of the "start up alignment process" that an inertial navigation system uses to find latitude and true north? Can you confirm your unit can determine latitude with no reference information?
Hi and thanks for your message - yes, I also have got a laser based INS which is fully compatible. So for work on software and bringing components together I use this one to save live on the gyros, avoid the noise of the FIN1010 and to have faster start up times. The FIN1010 in its first alignemt stage uses the acceleroemters to find "up". Than it turns the platform towards the north one entered via the panel. Now the gyroscopes are started and the analog computer within the FIN1010 gets active to maintain the platform upright using accelerometers and simultaneously monitors any rotation aroung the EW-axis of the platform. If there is a component of earth rate visible, the orientation of the platform is not precisely towards north and orientation is corrected by torquing. This process is done until the gyros are spun up (2-3mins) and now the platform is aligned to better than 0.5° already. Having done this, the digital computer starts supervising the analog computer and injecting earth rate to torque the platform to compensate the earth rotation while the analog computer's filters are switched to slower but more accurate responses. In this mode, called fine alignment, the platform is further aligned until the errors are below certain thesholds. If temperature of the whole platform is alredy stable the whole alignemt takes 10-15 mins. The platform can perfectly determine the angle between earth rotation and the vector of gravity and direction of north - so latitude and heading can be determined to better than 0.1° automatically, but for navigation purposes, i.e. dead reckoning by the digital computer, the position (lat & long) have to be entered via the panel in 0.1´ accuracy. Heading has to be entered to speed up the alignment process for the analog computer - 5° accuracy are fully sufficient here. Hopefully this answered your questions?
You are welcome - just come back if you have additional questions. Unfortunately I check with youtube not very often, so you may use my email erik@baigar.de if you need a quick answer.
This brings back memories of many hours spent in tornado cockpits inside hardened aircraft shelters, after inputting Lat/Long into the DINCDU (always raised a smile when we replaced one of those & asked the supplier for a 'Dinky-doo' :) & sat there waiting for the INS to align prior to crew walk. Then some big arse idiot would jump up into the cockpit & upset the alignment for another 5 minutes. I seem to remember the align lamp flashing at different rates depending upon how close to fully aligned it was? Or maybe that was the phantom INS with the joystick for entering lat/long onto rotary counters & a wonderful mechanical Nav display unit.
Thanks for that interesting comment! With the alignment lamp you are refering to the later LASER based LINS from Honeywell, which probably entered service in the UK somewhen later in the 2000s. That indeed flashed when close to full alignment. In the earlier (1972-2004(?)) FIN1010s there was a counter on the CDU counting down from 7 (inter coordinates) via 6 (alignment via accelerometers), 5 (turning on gyros), 4 (first prediction for gyro compass north), 3 (you can go if it is urgent) down to 0 (can not get better). Was not aware that the "small" movement caused by a single person vs. the whole aircraft can upset the alignment process that dramatically ;-)
Did you ever get the chance to fly this in a plane? I'm also restoring vintage avionics to mount them in a 172 and fly them to make video content about the history of avionics. I'd love to work together on this.
No - not had the chance yet. Although I have an experimental setup for keeping one of these running for 1h+ from a battery which is quite a challenge due to the power requirement. So this would need conversion to a safely transportable rack which can go airborne. Still have that on my list but maybe after Corona only and I have been thinking of making an agreement with this company for the event: www.classicwings-bavaria.de/html/antonov2.php (probably more space for installation than on a 172).
@@finner4463 Yes, I think you'd have much more room in an AN-2 for sure. Even with the right and rear seat out there isn't that much room in the 172. How much power does it need and in what format(s) by the way? Just curious. I'd love to find an inertial system some day. Thanks again for the great video.
@@scienceappliedtotheunivers9871 Hi - thanks for getting in touch again! You can reach out via email any time at erik-at-baigar-dot-de and I have a LiIon battery for powering the INS; without the map display it would operate for 1.5h selfconatined from that battery. Power requirements are 12-13A at 28V with another 10A for the map display. Total weight (INS only) would be around 30kg + 12kg for the battery - the map-display with inverter etc. adds another 20kg. I think regarding space and having a proper rack it would fit the space of one of the rear seats of a 172.
Thanks for showing this piece of technology. I saw Singer had such in shop years ago, but never thought someone would take the effort to get it ro run - outside a Tornado... interesting to see it spools the film so fast, when switching scaling, for example. If you would have scrolled more eastward of Linz, what would have happened? Looked the map material was ending there, because of the big black bar, right? What happens if plane flies northward, e.g. to Hamburg? Is the Northern map available on the roll, too?
Hi and thanks for your comments. The systems I have got are from Helmut Singer and they have been from Nimrod as I learned recently and not Tornado. But there are subtile hardware differences I stumbled across in my repair efforts. To answer your question: Yes, the former GDR etc. is not on the map and so east of Linz is a black bar followed by the next (more southern strip) of map starting at Nantes in France. Software of the maincomputer took care of moving to the next strip in Tornado if the current is left north- or southwards. If the aircraft went of film in western or estern direction or there are no suitable maps available, the display moved to a position on the film showing "off map" on a red background. I implemented all these features in my homebrew logger which was a substantial amount of work as I had to determine a very complex dataset relating x (0...12m) and y (0..36mm) of the film to latitudes, longitudes and selected scale. My film is just 4m (so 1/3 of the capacity of the display) and covers Brussles...Milano in N-S direction and Atlantic...Linz in the W-E direction.
Good question - in the 1970ties they where around 250000UKP, so price of a multi-story house worth by then for just the black navigation box. One of the systems I have seen, still has got a sticker on it giving the price for a refurbished (used) unit in around 2000 for 103000EUR which the Luftwaffe paid for it. Summary: VERY EXPENSIVE!
@@finner4463thanks for getting back to me, I've been considering buying some of these. I would love to see the gimbal stabilized as you shown in your video when the Gimbal was removed from the pressurised unit when you held it in your hand.. Or even to attempt to create a new moving map system, to make an in car non gps system like the James bond Aston Martin.. Aside from the main Gimbal platform unit, what else would I require for either just solely having the Gimbal powered to hold similar to your video.. Or to create the in car moving map system.. Ive seen a selection of available PCB board etc but not sure the bare minimum I would require or if it only works with a complete setup. Also the boards of various nature are available, however I have not seen any of the cables available.. Is this the case and the cables need to be fabricated by myself or any thought on this side? Just love the look of these units and was very impressed with your video start to finish, so would love to re create Partly, even if solely to turn the gimbal platform system on and hold it to be amazed, however I have a feeling it won't just need power but will also need the Gimbal platform to be externally controlled by a controller board of some sort to see the platform in action... Appreciate you my friend, kindly Craig
@@craigmorton644 What you require depends on the system - sometimes all is one box, sometimes it is 2 or three boxes. Cables are normally part of the airframe and need to be done yourself (one plug usually USD100 or more!) and you need to know the wiring. So: If you do not have a known working system the efforts are very big and I spent 1000s of hours learning how that stuff works, reverse-engineering and building that stuff. Today's technology does not make life easier here and that is why there are only very few systems of this kind still running...
@@finner4463 if I just wanted to turn the FIN1010 on to see it stabilising itself , would the only thing that will allow this be the ferranti test system you used... I think making it work aside from this as an actual moving map setup would maybe be too large a task. (for me in the meantime at least) if yes the ferranti test system would be required.. Is there even a small possibility I may be able to aquire one from somewhere? Many thanks, craig
We already had the inertial navigator (and the control panel) on board a car for a ride of 45min around Munich and it worked quite well. The problem generally is, that the navigator requires a lot of power (>25A at 12V) which is difficult to provide on an ordinary car. The display would require another 20A - so far I have no idea on how to do this onboard my car. Making it airborne is still on my agenda for the next years and of course I will document this if it is going to happen. But before I need to repair at least one backup unit and I want ro improve accuracy of my unit to be at least wihtin the original spec or better... Thanks for watching the video and for providing feedback!
Klaus Mueller Ja, diese Boxen sind wirklich Meisterwerke der Ingenieurskunst. Vor allem die FIN1010s mit ihrer Mischung aus Mechanik in der Platform, analoger Elektronik (teilweise auch zum Rechnen) und dem archaischen bitseriellen digitalen Computer...
What kind of accelerometers are used in there? Gyro is easy, the amazing/magic stuff are the accelerometers and how they manage the double integration from acceleration => velocity=>position over an hour, without drifting all over the place. 650m error over an hour, is about equal to 0.0001m/s² or 1300m/h² accuracy in absolute acceleration measurement. If hypothetical accelerometer with 1kg test mass is used, that would require a resolution of 0.01mgF/0.1mN, to measure the force change caused by 0.0001m/s² acceleration... (if I calculated correctly... ;-)
The accelerometers are type F2A by Ferranti. Acceleration is compensated by a magnet and hence converted into a current. That current is integrated in a cap and a precise, oven stabilized current source is used to clear the cap. That converts the integrated acceleration into a pulse. These are integrated by the computer (digitally) giving the 2nd integration. But actually, it is much harder making gyroscopes which are good enough regarding drift. In one hour you probably travel 1000km and having a maximum error of 650m there makes a permitted drift of 0.037°/h. The gyro in a smart phone is °per minute (not hour). On the other hand, the gimballed navigation system can handle 30° per second, giving a dynamic range of ~3E6 which is about 10 times better than the accelerometer's... I could easily give a 2h talk on these floated rate integrating gyros ;-)
Hi! Ill write this in english but im from germany so in case you would get in touch with me we could move over to german :) I just got a PHI-4A Wind calculator from a starffighter, i did not plan on getting the entire unit but now that its here i will have to get it running. While i understand how it works (its not really complicated) I have no schematics at all and the wiring is very difficult to rout on paper by hand. The PCBs are all coated and glued, i will not take them apart. Can you recommend a source for schematics for 70s military aviation?
Hi - there is no general answer to the question. As that stuff is military it is not easy getting hands on documentation - maybe try posting in a facebook group on the F104. A simple google search points me there - www.radelow.ch/anderes/avionik/inert/phi4a/index.htm - and that guy surely has some know-how on the PHI-4A ;-) Good luck!
Yes, these small inlets are leading to 1" screamer fans (incredibly loud fans running at 24000 1/min). Normally the inertial platform is enclosed in a vessl pressurized (2-3 bars) of a mixture of N2 and He2 (latter for improved thermal conductivity) and these fans ensure isothermal conditions within the vessel. Around the vessel is a two layer construction and the airflow around the vessel is controlled to helt all the electrical heaters within the vessel to maintain the correct temperature for optimum floating of the gyroscopes.
@@finner4463 the fans seem to be a brushless type. there are three wires on each. I have one of this beautiful Unit, but without Power and controller, just the unit. I am amazed about how complex hand-made stuff it is. just the motors have an insane amount of wiring, I dont have any info how the controllers manage to drive that but just having this old piece of art is mindblowing
Complimenti per l'ottimo video.....da appassionato di Tornado IDS, mi sono sempre chiesto come una tecnologia analogica potesse riprodurre mappe così precise a video....ho una domanda da farle, ma la pellicola a colori della mappa di volo veniva caricata sul FIN 1010 prima di ogni volo e solo per la rotta stabilita o riusciva a coprire la superficie aerea di una nazione intera esempio tutta la Germania ??
Hi Daniele, sorry for not being able to reply in Italian language. Yes, the accuracy of these systems is for me still today quite amazing! Within the display there is space for 12m of color film which is enough to cover e.g. complete north Europe (De, CH and the northern parts of It and Fr) in three different scales of map. The display with its diameter of 18cm shows e.g. 25, 50 or 100 miles of area. Hopefully this answers your question?
Hi Davide - thanks for the positive feedback. Regarding the map material: I think it was never used on real sorties as it is a copy of the approval film: Mr Kiening, who developed the ingenious equipment for map rectification and exposure onto standard cine film had to produce a map film which was checked at the manufacturer of the displays (Ferranti) to validate the exposure process. I am just happy, that south of Germany is part of this film which is not the full length of 12m (total Europe) but only around 4m. But apart from this: Many thanks to Mr. H. Kiening for supplying this wonderful piece of history to me ;-) (See the movie starting at 2:12).
Thank you very much for your answer. I am particularly interested in the test patterns that you show around 10:00. I would assume that the first test pattern was copied from the original maps, while the second shows the type of film used by Mr Kiening? Do you know which types of film where used in the original maps, and which test pattern was shown? Thank you very much for your help :)
Hi Davide, thanks for your message (and for your private email). I have the "official" header on the film too, but I did not show it in the video because it is very boring. But I can offer to supply an image of those - 1st there is a header with written text, what is on the film, but this header is to big to be displayed on the RPMD or CRPMD completely (ony a 8mm portion of the 35mm film is imaged to the silked screen). 2nd there is a "ZeroPattern" which had to be aligned with the central marker of the display (RPMD or CRPMD) to verify correct positioning of the film. Apart from this I can supply the test pattern displayed on the TV/Tab displays driven from the WFG1: www.baigar.de/TornadoComputerUnit/TV-Tab-TFT-OnWFG.JPG
Thank you very much! I would be very interested in the zero pattern, that is what I have not been able to find. The manual shows a tiny imagine but it is impossible to understand what it is. Thank you!
Together with a hobby-äcolleague, we had one of these in a BMW and took it to a ride around Munich. But it is not that easy as it may sound: Power requirements (>25A at 12V for the navigator without display) are difficult to realize on board a normal car. On our ride, the inadequate cooling also lead to position runaway after 40 mins and a forced shutdown 5 mins later. But I guess, that a maximum error of 1km/h should be possible in a car ;-)
;-) Yes, Dachau is meanwhile an important suburb to Munich - lot of people commute from there to the center of Munich. But yes - lot of people are immediately thinking of the sad old days when hearing this name.
Hmmm, I doubt anyone can win using the FIN as a WIImote: The 28.5kg prevent any fast movements, but it would definitively be an excellent weight training replacing many gym visits ;-)
Amazing work of yours getting it to come alive. And it works!! I've added a link to your video on my Tornado tribute fansite. www.moodurian.com/tornado. The page is: www.moodurian.com/tornado/tor/avionics.html. Thanks.
Hi Frankie, thanks for setting a link to the video! I did not even know, that there was a DOS based flight sim - this obviously is a must-have ;-) The upcoming weekend I am going to show the system on the vintage computer festival in Munich and I am also giving a talk on it. Hopefully the monster will survive the many demo cycles I am expecting during the three-day event. Please keep up your good work in maintaining your page!
Thanks. Back in 1993 this DOS Tornado simulator was as accurate as you could get with 320x240 pixels. See www.moodurian.com/tornado/seats/pilot.html and www.moodurian.com/tornado/seats/navigator.html heh.
Thanks for the links - I just obtained an originally packed set of documentation and floppies for this game. Hopefully it will run in a vmware ;-) On your page I notice, that the simulated Tornado there already has got the more modern map display in the front cockpit (I think it is calles EHDD) not my old RPMD.
RPMD = Radar Projected Map Display systems. goo.gl/ei2T88 EHDD = Enhanced Head-Down Display goo.gl/0rup9B FYI, BAE Systems TARDIS document (PDF) here: goo.gl/hMxZd1 BTW, Tornado runs best in DOSBox and Oracle's VirtualBox. See "Tornado Beginners start here" at goo.gl/aFnwJK FYI, Tornado's flat-shaded polygon graphics was already outdated by 2 years when Digital Integration released Tornado in 1993. Its 332-page printed manual is a classic. Back in the 1990s, it was the most realistic low-level flight simulator for the PC and Amiga. Its mission planner was way ahead of anything that the RAF had in 1993. Its synchronised multi-plane mission planning was unmatched by LOMAC even in 2011. To this day, it is still the complete combat simulator package complete with brutal AI and excellent autopilot modes. And it was written mainly in 16 bit x86 Assembly language. For gamers today with fast PCs, I would recommend X-Trident's Tornado for X-Plane 10. See goo.gl/s4U90S for details and the Mudspike review at goo.gl/wUA7xe .
Hi - many thanks for your hints on flight simulators. I have never looked into flight simulators before, but the X-Tridents implementation looks really realistic! Meanwhile I ordered one of the vintage packages and I will give it a try, just out of curiosity ;-) With the displays, the CRPMD is the back seaters display allowing overlay of radar and map to make adjustments to the position (therefor C for "Combined"). The pilot's display is the RPMD, alias "Repeater Projected Map Display" which only offers map - the EHDD I guess had much more features and of course TARDIS for the navigator is a different kind of "machine" I think. The RPMD is the one, my logger can control and BTW the RPMD was controlled from the CRPMD's electronics... Have a nice time...
...I am sorry to hear this, but this was my first RUclips video. I will take this into account with the one in preparation regarding the VCFe 2017 in Munich and perhaps I can generate a news version of this movie with music muted, too.
@@finner4463 great video. My grandad was a MOD engineer and spent many years working on the tornado in the UK and Germany, not really sure which parts, but I think it was something to do with weapons/fire control
@@dougsteel7414 Of course, there where lot of people busy keeping that stuff alive at many locations. I had the opportunity to visit the maintenance facility in Marham/UK once after this video was uploaded: Had a deep dive there and a really great time as it was my first and only time so close to these birds ;-) Of course mostly interested in navigation, display, aerodynamics and computer related stuff.
Congratulations on your amazing work to get both a FIN1010 and an RPMD into full working order, and also your ingenuity in interfacing them to a convincing display set-up. Thank you also for bringing back memories of the good old days when all of this was cutting edge technology. You would have made an excellent Ferranti engineer !
Hi - many thanks for the positive words! Yes, I really like these systems and despite having seen lot of different technology, these are still my most admired devices! Really sad to see, that much of the kow-how is lost... By the way: Are you the author of the "Inertial Navigation - 40 years of evolution"? Great paper!
@@finner4463 Yes, indeed - but it seems a long time ago. But some of the know-how continues - a few of my former colleagues are still making very successful laser gyro inertial systems in Edinburgh, although the company is now called Leonardo.
@@anthonyking7131 Wow - in the past I tried various approaches to reach out for you without success ;-) Yes, there are still clever engineers in Leonardo active(had an invitation to visit them after I published the video - was shown what remained from the INS branch). But the mechanical systems with the floated gyros on the gimbals, the analog computer paired with the 32bit digital one where way ahead of time in the 1970ties when 18 bit computers filled a fridge size cabinet. I collected lot of documentation from various places, but I wish I could have more ;-) You can get in touch any time using my private email erik -at- baigar -dot- de.
Thanks for this video. My father was head of the department at Ferranti that designed the inertial navigation systems for Ariane, Tornado and Harrier. During the Falkland War his department developed systems to allow Army Harriers to fly from ships as the Army Harrier navigation system assumed the plane was stationery when the system started which was not the case on a ship. There might be someone in Edinburgh who would have more information. My father died a few years ago he would be 85 now.
Hi and thanks for your comment - the equipment to align the Harrier's INS at sea was called FINRAE I think and I have even been to Edinburgh, but unfortunately the era of the INS systems is long over and almost all experts are retired. Even the nice tools for assembly, alignment and test are meanwhile gone - I am still trying hard to preserve what I can get hands on!
And yes, those platforms have been used on Ariane 1-3 (and even earlier on Europa already) and where one reason why Ariane earned her reputation of being a very accurate satellite launcher. Best wishes...
Wonderful video, I've fond student memories of the inertial navigation systems dept at Ferranti Silverknowes, Edinburgh
Thanks - yes, must have been a good time there! Anything you may want to share as I am keen on any stuff from the old days (I am trying to preserve as much as possible for posteriority - simply get in touch erik -at- baigar -dot- de)?
@@finner4463 we were moving to laser gyros by the time I got there, I didn't get involved with the system you have here
@@alecwood1282 Yeah, but that might also be highly interesting as the Ariane 3 and 4 used these laser gyros ;-) As mentioned anyting related to the now defunc INS dept is fascinating to me (never worked in that area, just a hobby ;-)).
This is soooo good that I watched it again with my son for a good night tale. Such a masterpiece of engineering and creative sollutions.
Yes, you are absolutely right. To work properly, mechanics, electronics and the computer all have to be perfect! During fixing these systems, I often wondered about some feature just discovering later that evarything serves a purpose! The floated gyros in these units would be worth a video on their own! Thanks for watching and your feedback!
Hi Erik. Was absolutely lovely to meet you today at the South Wales Aviation Museum. Elliott sent me the link to this video. Wow absolutely brilliant. For me being an Engineman on Tornado, it was mind blowing but also totally fascinating.
If you are ever down here again near Wales, please pop in and say hello.
Kindest Regards.
Martin
Hi Martin, thanks for the positive feedback! Really enjoyed the Museum with the access to a lot of cockpits and chatting to the experienced people there (the stories and experience from these days is as interesting and fascinating as technology itself!). Will be happy to stay in touch (reach out any time via email erik -at- baigar -dot- de if you want) and keep up the great work in St. Athan!
This is beyond amazing, I am astounded by your ingenuity. Thank you so much for doing this work and bringing us this excellent video of a cold war MMD INS.
Thanks for your positive words - always great to get such feedback. Currently I am working to make the system battery powerd, so it can be easily carried on board a car. Hopefully I will have some new video material end of this year... So stay tuned and again many thanks for watching ;-)
I'm incredibly impressed at the effort and knowledge in this project! I'm all the more amazed to see the units working together!
Congratulations!
Thanks for your positive words. Bringing the units together is indeed lot of fun. Ongoing work are connection of an altimeter, an
original attitude inidcator and a magnetic compass for automatic heading entry at startup. End of April I will show the units in working condition on the vintage computer festival in Munich - www.vcfe.org/D/. There I am also curios that the feedback will be ;-)
FIN ner Did you ever look at doing this with the CRPMD from the rear seat?
Hi Ciaran, no currently there are no plans to also connect the CRPMD: I had one of these beasts and FIN data input into this is simpler than to control the RPMD, but to fully activate the CRPMD (esp. the radar overlay) lot of reverse engineering would be necessary. So I skipped this project and instead I connected an attitude indicator and the altimeter is work in progress. Next to come is a interface for the HSI...
Wow - 100 comments! Thanks for all the feedback ;-) Meanwhile I have two fully restored, working FIN101X units and a stock of 3 not yet completely restored and having various faults. Got in touch with lot of exciting people during my work on those and during related research. Similar inertial platforms have been used on the Nimrod, Jaguar, Harrier aircraft; they have been in space on the Europa rockets and they made the Ariane 1-3 the most accurate space launch vehicle (two platforms per rocket). Other applications included measurements for deep well inspection, gunnery equipment and probably some others! The story is going on ;-)
This is a wonderfully beautiful video. In a few more years nobody will have a proper understanding of these old devices.
+Ice Skater Thanks for the compliments - and you are absolutely right: I believe that the know how is lost already. I did a lot of research and tried to get in touch with someone who worked on these systems and I had not any success (the design was completed around 40 years ago). In the meantime I have quite a good understanding on how the unit works and I fixed all the electronics issues (two units achive alignment status "0", but I still have a defective gyroscope in one of the units). I am also still unclear on how the tweaking (attachment of balancing weights, determining trimming electronics components for the various corrections) was done in the factory. I guess, without this knowledge and/or a good plan, an attempt to change a gyroscope may lead to a unit of very low accuracy. Thus the next step is to build a gyro tester which will help me in characterizing gyroscopes and later in aligning a new one (which I obtained via eBay already) within the azimuth cluster.
FIN ner
Interesting. I just bought two older Gyros. One probably not so good but the other is for the bendix polar path compass system which enabled airlines to fly polar routes like London to Anchorage. Bought from ebay, they are still in the post. The idea is to make some videos showing earth rotation, finding latitude, how to make a gyrocompass and so forth. At this stage I know next to nothing about gyros but history of science is interesting as is knowing how things work compared to reading about it. Repairing an inertial navigation gyro? Well I can see already that you like challenges and are good at overcoming difficulties. :-)
FIN ner
I managed to get my gyro working in case you saw my earlier message. Thanks
***** Thanks for your messages. I have seen them - the Bendix system also looks very interesting especially that it is working in polar regions sounds interesting. My navigator e.g. only works up to 85deg...
Great to know, that there are others out there interested in such stuff...
Great to see, that probably information from the web caused you to look into this technology! I am crossing my fingers, that you will have fun with your new toys. Depends on the gyro, whether repair makes sense. In case of the gyros fitted to the FIN1010/FIN1012 the answer is definitively NO: They are of the floated type (i.e. there is liquid in there supporting the precession axis) and toxic materials (Beryllium) have been used, so I am pretty happy that they are closed and never will open one. Instead I managed to get hands on some NOS (new old stock) spare gyros. Anyhow - even changing the gyro within the platform will be a challange due to lack of jigs and knowledge on how to compute the values for the compensation compionents for accelration crosstalk and anisoelasticity.
I’m so glad you where able to get all this tech and information before it gets lost to time
Thanks for the feedback and yes, I also think that now is the last time to collect the information and know how remaining. The remaining experts having some know how on this equipment are retiring now and most know how from the development days is lost already :-( But working and fixing this stuff is really exciting and offers phenomenal learning ;-)
WOW amazing!
personaly im in love with moving maps, cant wait for Tornado in DCS
Thanks for the great feedback! Highly appreciated! Currently setting up a scanner for scanning the map film for preservation for later generations ;-) Happy transition into the new year 2023!
Hi This brought back many memories as I used to design/ install the F.I.S.T. equipments that were used to test all of these INS including the factory level Test Equipment that tested the lower level sub-assemblies.
Wow - that is amazing! So you are one of the experts with the FIST - would be very interesting to have some more exchange with you; if interested, get in touch via email at erik-at-baigar-dot-de!
Just for those not into technical details: The FIST machines where test sets that existed in different flavours - the FIST-M (M for manual) can be seen in the Video, ruclips.net/video/-EQqfxiGgd8/видео.html but there have been computer controlled variants, too. They intererstingly used the same archaic and completely uniqe computer to test individual boards which had to be plugged into some letterbox like slit for that. An other one, FIST-P (P for platform), was used to test the platforms and from this data it calculated values for compensation components (>15 resistors and capacitors) which where placed onto a trimmer board to make the plaform as perfect as possible. I really tried lot to rescue some of that stuff - sadly without success and recently have been told that all was removed from the old clean rooms :-(
Thanks for getting in touch outside of RUclips; thids exchange is highly appreciated :-)! Best wishes and take care...
You Sir, are brilliant. Thanks for sharing this excellent video.
+alpcns Thanks for the great feedback - highly appreciated, that there are people out there interested in such stuff.
Great video!
The reason I looked for videos was I met an 80 year old man in a pub in Edinburgh (home to a lot of Ferranti) recently. He whad been an electronic engineer on this system! Pity I didn’t know about your project before that as I’m sure he would have been happy to talk to you, he was full of interesting info.
My dad was also a senior manager at Ferranti and I grew up with the Tornado and Harrier projects and also Eurofighter. On the moving map, my dad used to tell a story that they had land rovers on hills around Edinburgh to triangulate some kind of signal for it during testing and they were driving the moving map around in some kind of vehicle also.
Hi Ian, thanks for your email! Yeah, would have been great getting in touch - that is what is equally exciting as the thechnical project itself: The people who developed these systems are really very clever and have fascinating stories to tell. Yes, they used trucks and test aircraft to look how the systems are working in dynamic situations. It is a major challenge operating such a system in a car (had my FIN1010 with mocing map in my Opel Vectra car already - see my blog www.baigar.de/TornadoComputerUnit/TimeLine.html and scroll down to 6/28/2018). I am still interested in any story/material/information, just get in touch via email at erik-at-baigar-dot-de ;-)
Ferranti developed a ruggedised IN system to aid artillery aiming. It was called PADS (Position Azimuth and Direction System). It was to be carried from the gun, in a vehicle/ camel/ human, to a FOP where information from a laser collimator pointed at the target was input. The software then worked out the aiming for the howitzer. They employed a surveyor company to exactly plot and mark positions around Edinburgh in order to test each production unit. Unfortunately, the company did not ask permission from the council, or anybody else. These markers ended up in people's driveways and in the middle of busy roads. Every day, these land-rovers would spend several minutes parked on private property or holding up traffic. Of course, the council repaired roads, and so many markers were lost!
@@DalgetyBayHypnotherapy Great story! I knew, that a tuck was used for driving around EDI testing the inertial navigation units (and one actually still had some waypoints around EDI in memory), but not familiar with the PADS system. Great information and that shows how stuff can go wrong! If you have more to tell, feel free getting in touch via email any time ;-) Happy Xmas...
I'm reminiscing now.😀
When I first joined Ferranti at Silverknowes, the only production IN was the original Harrier INAS. The Chief Production Engineer was John Flett. Later, they built a big extension for the later models along the corridor. All the actual platforms, no matter the final destination were made in the same area.
The 3 main production post-INAS models were for Tornado, Jaguar and PADS, and a smaller run for the Nimrod. There was a separate development area where one-off systems and Space models were developed. For many years thus was run by Ian Muir.
In the main systems assembly the Production Manager was Bob Marshall. There were 3 Chief Production Engineers: Walter Duff (Tornado), George McKie (Jaguar) and Jim Morris on (PADS). Walter later became Quality Manager. They were nicknamed the Three Wise Men. There was an awful lot if hilarity in those days. Backing on to this area was the Commissioning clean room. My memory is too hazy to recall the people in there.
Shortly after a war between Israel and Egypt, during which many tanks became lost in the desert, there was a push to modify PADS for use on tanks. I remember well the day when two separate sales teams managed to invite generals, together with enormous, armed bodyguards, from both sides to visit Silverknowes on the same morning! We had to post sentries at every intersection in a desperate attempt to keep them from becoming aware of each other. In the end, neither side bought anything. 🤣
I was originally in Procurement but eventually helped to control Mod States. This was frought with difficulty as they tried to use common PCBs when they could.
I moved to South Gyle as a Systems Analyst for several years. I returned to Silverknowes, in a corporate capacity as Group Business Systems Mgr for BAE Systems Electronics. By that time, all my old friends had gone.
@@DalgetyBayHypnotherapy Thanks for sharing the memories - must have been exciting times to work for Ferranti. Unfortunately all the electro mechanical stuff is history now (was invited to the factory in around 2017 after they have seen the video - was shown the remaining maintenance and repair equipment in the clean room - but all gone now). Do you have or know some source of pictures of the PADS system? I have collected everything I couls from the airborne systems, but nothing from PADS... erik -at- baigar -dot- de.
I love this project. Thanks for showing such a cool piece of tech, and learning how to talk to it!
Thanks for the positive words - always great to hear, that someone likes the video ;-)
Amazing, fantastic work!
Hi Chris, thanks for the positive feedback! Still an exciting hobby and behinf the scenes I am working towards repairing some more of these systems just to keep one running for the years to come ;-)
What an amazing film. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
Thanks for the comment. During making the video, I did not expect so many people watching (and liking) it ;-)
+FIN ner +FIN ner Seeing how the 35mm film was projected reminds me of how in the field in which I worked, which was flight simulation and control, the piloted simulations used a large moving scale model belt with a TV camera "flying" over it. In many ways, today's digital solutions are so much less imaginative! I like how you have managed to interface some modern micro electronics. I am dealing with restoring far simpler electric systems from that era, which really puts me in awe of what you have achieved.
+DJ Walker Thanks for the positive feedback. I have seen one of the flight simulators with the model belt: It was based on a standard roller blind as used in normal homes - it was just 20m long and the ends connected, making an endless landscape (at least in one direction ;-)). So yes, great what was achieved those days - and keep up your restoring work as well!
Absoloutely fascinating video and the work you have done on researching and reverse engineering these vintage systems is nothing short of remarkable. Thank you for the effort you have put in over the years to allow us to have a glimpse into these amazing and once top-secret computer systems.
Thanks for the feedback which is highly appreciated!
Just found this. All so familiar. As a student, one of the first projects I had was to produce a test set for the CDU using a serial computer as used in the IN unit. After graduation worked for a few years on ongoing development of various more advanced computer/memory technologies used in later units.
Wow, that is interesting - do you still remember more details?!! Would be highly interesting knowing more on that one as creating the software for the FIN and the test sets still is a somewhat white area in my research! Please feel free to get in touch any time via email, erik-at-baigar-got-de, this would be highly appreciated!
Thanks for getting in touch off-line! Very interesting information and interested anything else that might show up - best wishes and take care.
A lot of effort to get this really fantastic units back to live and combine them with actual technology. My deep respect Mr. Q :-)
All the best for your next explorations!
Thanks Jens for the comment! Indeed there is a lot of work in there. In the meantime I fixed three of the units and only keeping them alive is a bigger task than I expected: After some time in storage one always encounters new failures (there are approx. 2500 electronic compontens in there). Next will be connecting an altimeter...
Vielen herzlichen Dank für diesen wirklich interessanten Beitrag!! Ohne den Filmclip hätte ich nie einen Einblick in diese interessante Technik bekommen. Super!
Vielen Dank für das positive Feedback - ja, das ist Sinn und Zweck des Videos: Erhalten und weitergeben einer lang vergessenen Technik ;-) Guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr 2022...
@@finner4463 Wünsche ich Ihnen auch. Nebenbei: Vor noch 20 Jahren hätte ich ewig in irgendwelchen Fachzeitschriften oder Bibliotheken nach Artikeln über diese Technik suchen müssen. Dagegen sind die Möglichkeiten zur Suche geradezu traumhaft. Hätte es ruhig etwas früher geben dürfen...
@@Jooorg Ja - für mich ist einer der größten Vorzüge des Internet, daß man mit Leuten in Kontakt kommt und Sachen sieht, die man früher nicht erreicht hätte. Da haben Sie vollkommen Recht!
Loss for words! Awesome! A modern compact unit is something I have always wanted and would dish out as much as I paid for my Garmin GPS any day to get.
Hi and great you like the video! In the good old days (1974 as Tornado was developed), the FIN1010 alone was 250000UKP (worth a nice house those days). One of the units I saw sold off by Germany's Luftwaffe had still a price tag attached (German conditioning label) in 2010s EURs it read 107000 (for a used unit!). So even at the end of its life it was "little" more expensive than any Garmin ;-)
RUclips worst algorithm keep me out of point. This is the channel what I want.
Special thanks for narrating in English. Compelling dedication, just excellent to watch.
Thanks for watching and of course for the positive feedback - meanwhile I am working on integration of an altimeter, a drift indicator and a horizontal situation indicator into the setup and to make it all battery powered. So the story will go on. Have a good time...
Absolutely amazing!
Many thanks for the positive words! A vintage avionics colleague has got the original HUD display and of course the next step is to bring the navigator and this HUD together ;-) So stay tuned...
Really excellent work!! Love the tornado
The Tornado incorporates lot of technology which was really advanced in the 1970ties. Although I do not like the purpose, these aircraft have been built for, I still enjoy learning about the technologies used (compared to the science fiction films of those days, the Tornado was quite advanced ;-) ).
Excellent video. Thank you.
Hi Nick - thanks for the kind words! Highly appreciated and great you liked it!
Amazing stuff!
Thanks for the positive comment which is highly appreciated! But internally the technology is even more amazing - esp. the gyros which required 100s of man years in development ;-)
I guarantee this is the only video of a working map viewer system on the Internet.
Thanks for the cool feedback! Yes, also have not seen one yet. But a reason my be, that in the old days it was not easy to take a smart phone into the cockpit and do some recordings during flight ;-) Had the system in my car already and accuracy is not really suitable for navigation in Munich's traffic - he he...
Fantastic video it has explained to me very clearly how the INS works. Thank you and look forward to any future videos.
Thanks for the positive words - there has been lot of progress in this project (transparent housings for platform and logger; repaired 3 addieional of the systems etc), but making a good video is a lot of work but hopefully there will be a second one in 2018...
I was watching a bit from the old TV series from the BBC 'Tomorrows World' and an inertial guidance system for use in conjunction with an audio tape deck, was fitted to a VW Beetle. It was a pilot system trialled in Chatham Kent. It wasnt as advanced as this, although based on similar principle (minus the rolling map) but it was impressive and sounded like a modern satnav. This video is fascinating. I once discussed this system with an old RAF colleague (brown job myself). He safly passed away recently, but this brought a smile to my face of a long forgotten chat over a beer....such is the dialogue between old warriors i guess! Thank you!
Hi and thanks for your comment - during my research on this topic I got in touch with quite a lot of the guys from the good old days and it was always fascinating to hear the stories, mishaps and difficulties they encountered in making those things work. Really sad, that lot of this knowledge is going to be lost :-(
Amazing Erick, congratulations !!!
Hi David - thanks for your positive feedback; always highly appreciated. Meanwhile learned lot more in repairing some of the units and currently I have one with a failed gyro I am trying to fix which requires development of extensive tooling. So the project still is highly fascinating ;-)
I was also involved in testing the Map Rectification Machine that we produced along with the Cassette Preparation Ground Station that enabled mission planning.
Very nice - so you are talking on the semi-mechanic rectification process used in the UK (compared to the later Commodore-controlled one in Germany)? Would be very cool having some exchange with you - feel free to get in touch at any time via email: erik-at-baigar-dot-de!!
By the way: The ground station for preparing the flight data from a map using a digitizing tablet can be seen in that movie ruclips.net/video/rHjU0sdHRV8/видео.html and a little later, the navigtor in the rear cockpit loads the tape created into the main computer: ruclips.net/video/rHjU0sdHRV8/видео.html. The same type of casette (music tape) was used to load the film specification data, too.
So cool! You should produce a highway map and try it in your car.
Hi and thanks for the suggestion: Indeed I had the system already in my car on some round trips ;-) Actually energy supply is the problem there! Regarding an own map: Today no one can produce such film maps any more - I even was in touch with ARRI making equipment for creating 35mm film from digital media but they can not do without the black bars between frames (would require a severe firmware change in their equipment)...
Fantastic work !
Thanks for the feedback - your activities are quite interesting, too! I wonder where you get all those wonderful toys from? If you should come accross one of the FINs (need spares) or perhaps a MCS.920 from GEC, Marconi or Elliott (those are my other big interest, see www.baigar.de/TornadoComputerUnit/index.html) , I'd be highly interested.
Please keep up documenting vintage hardware!
It is good to see that there is someone saving past mechanical inertial technology and hardware. I remember reading about the Ferranti gimbaled FIN platform in an Encyclopedia while in high school. It was one of the things that started my own interest in Inertial Guidance Systems. The United States usually destroyed the military systems, however many years ago I traveled the country searching for Government surplus hardware. Later eBay was also a good source of material. One day I hope to form a museum around the different hardware I have mostly saved from the "scrap man". Over thirty years ago, I acquired a few of the Kearfott King Series floated integrating gyroscopes. These are the same gyros that were later licensed and improved by the British firm. I actually opened some of them. Beryllium is actually safe as long as you do not machine, file, grind or chemically react it. I have lived with the metal since the late 1970's with no ill effects.
Cool to see, that there are other nerds out there also taking care on the preservation of at least some of this cool stuff! I am still somewhat scared regarding the Be and I even sent in some material from the platform itself to see whether the unopened gyros or the gimbals are any risk - fortunately they are not!
Opened one of the later Litton gyros to inspect it and yes - this is also a masterpiece but I like the Ferranti ones more (theay are more accurate, too) ;-)
Are you familiar with Kat-Metal Oy ?
No, not heared of this yet! I know that Be in pure metal form is rather harmless - there are even high pitch speakers around which use membranes made from Beryllium.
Searching the WEB for Kat-Metal Oy I found this sad picture: goo.gl/images/w952ur Many parts from scrapped Ferranti platforms. . . Extremely sad!
Yes, I saw that photo too. What a terrible waste. Perhaps you can contact them and find out if there is anything left. Even some of the parts might be worth saving. I am too far away in the U.S.
Hi Jerome, yes maybe I am going to write them an email but they process a lot of goods, so I am not optimistic. If you have some pictures of your parts (Be, gyro internals), I'd be highly interested. You can mail me directly at erik -at- baigar.de if you want. Apart from this the very best to the US and have nice X-mas and a good start to the new year...
This is excellent work! I look forward to your being able to put it altogether for a proper test flight someday. 8)
Thanks! This is a goal for the next five years - although I am making progress in understanding the internals of the FIN1010/1012, repairing and keeping such a device running is a major challenge. This is the most complex device I ever tried to maintain/repair so far: Everything (mechanics, analog/digital electronics, thermal management etc.) has to be perfect for the unit to deliver acceptable performance.
Great video. Thanks for sharing it!
Great Video 👍
Thanks for the kind words! That hobby still is fascinating as there is lot more to discover out there ;-)
@@finner4463hast du die Geräte noch? 🙂
@@jackson0816 Hi - ja, klar. Versuche möglichst viel von den Sachen zu retten, zu dokumentieren und für die Nachwelt zu erhalten. Leider ist das System aus dem Film im Moment nicht einsatzbereit, aber ich arbeite an der Reperatur!
@@finner4463 klasse. Die Technik der moving map finde ich genial. Weißt du wo ich hierzu noch mehr Infos finde? Google Recherche blieb bisher erfolglos.
@@jackson0816 Da gibts nix im Netz - war damals alles geheim und die letzten Experten von damals sind schon länger in Rente. War sehr mühsam da Sachen zusammenzutragen und vieles selber zu analysieren. Bei konkreten Fragen einfach melden, auch per mail unter erik@baigar.de.
Worth watching ! Thank you.
amazing tech!
But how is the unit aligned with the film (e.g. when moving to another theater), how much map info is stored on one roll, and what happens if you fly past the border of the film?
Thre was "translation data" with the film which had to be loaded into the computer (I recreated that by using my setup to move the display to around 200 known locations/cities and correlating film position (x,y) with the lat/long from google) from than on the computer can calculate the x,y position on the film. In the E-W-direction a calibration is necessary which probably was done by the navigator using his joystick - so upon starting (at a known position) the map display was moved to precisely the right position and that was confirmed by pressing a button. If you watch carefully at 590s, ruclips.net/video/-EQqfxiGgd8/видео.html, in the film rushing by there is a red area showing an entirely red screen with lot of text "OFF MAP" on it. So if outside the film material, the display showed that region of the film - I re-implemented that as well. Map coverage depended on country and sortie - I know of maps covering whole north Europe (UK, DE, CH, A) in three scales or e.g. the Falklands.
Very interesting video. Thank you!
That is so nice, nothing today system is not so exotic electro mechanic.
Yes absolutely - that is what makes these so fascinating; one can with enough efforts really understand everything and they can also be fixed to component level.
Really cool! Great video!
Thanks for the positive feedback - always good to read that someone liked the video!
Awesome video
Thanks for that comment - feedback like this keeps me going ;-)
Very nice, very interesting!
Thanks for your words ;-)
I wonder if you know how clever you are. I worked on Tornado from 1980 as a Airframe Tech “Rigger” and found the electronics in this aircraft very interesting even if I didn’t understand it all. Now it all seems old tech but i often wondered about the tech in these black boxes. Very interesting video.
Thanks for that positive feedback! I think the avionics of Tornado was very advanced for its day and they even had ONE SINGLE network (Panavialink) connecting all the avionics - modern aircraft use a zoo of different ones and that complexity often is a problem. Comparing the cockpit of the space ship "Enterprise" from the 1970ties series with the cockpit of Tornado I think science fiction was reality there ;-)
Outstanding.
Many thanks for the positive word - really appreciated! The adventure of fixing my 1012 and documenting/collecting as much information on the series of inertial navigation systems is still ongoing and I guess it will never get boring. In the future I need to make more documentation videos on this field, so stay tuned ;-) Have a good time...
Interesting that I ended up giving the 125 "Like". The 125 series were some of the most elegantly designed of the inertial grade gyroscopes.
Hi Peter, thanks and cool that your comment is No 125! Yes, these gyros are incredible and over the years I tried to get as much information as possible, which makes them even more admirable to me:
E.g. for the space applications in satellites and the Ariane, gyros have been tested over ten years non-stop in space like conditions without any failure. Also lot of highly interesting data had been recorded in fantastic precision experiments: E.g. the balls circulating in the bearings and the cages ensuring their distance in the bearing can be "seen" in the fourier spectrum of the carefully analyzed data obtained in those measurements as these components are rotating at different frequencies than the mass of the gyroscope.
Do you have got any other information on those gyros? I'd be still interested in a technical drawing!
Here is an interesting article with a exploded view of the GEC Type 125 gyroscope.
I have "lived' with Beryllium for over 35 years and it is quite safe in solid form. Some larger pieces are even attached to the wall in my room.
There is a GEC type 126 gyroscope that uses a gas bearing rotor, however I have never been able to locate any. Years ago I visited the U.S. company called Speedring. They manufactured the Type 126 Beryllium gyro float housings.
adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1997ESASP.381....9R
Thanks again, also thanks for the link. I did not know this yet - the article I have been referring to, is the NLR report here:
repository.tudelft.nl/view/aereports/uuid:248c1a9b-9e2f-45bb-85d4-c5690ad2aec1/ - but searching the NASA database from your link, there are in total four documents with probably very similar content. But the cross section of the gyro shown there is the standard picture which is available on other sources as well.
For years I am trying to get in touch with people who worked on this stuff and it quite difficult as all have retired many years ago and I learned recently, that the gyro related equipment at the original factory in Edinburgh was scrapped years ago :-(
Thanks again for your comments and the link!
I am having trouble sending the Ferranti 125 images. Regards.
Hopefully we solved the issues - many thanks for the cool pictures. The 125 is indeed
made from very nice parts and there is a huge amount of know how in there ;-)
Superb!
Thanks for the good feedback. Unfortunately my demonstration FIN1012 failed with a gyro fault recently and I decided to take on the task of changing the gyro which involves design of tooling and electronics for getting it properly aligned. Maybe these efforts will be an upcoming video...
you rock!!! i love your video, I know jetart by news, they are sold a Tornado a Harrier for civilian.
Thanks for the kind words ;-) Yes, did some business with JetArt and they also have got interesting parts in their eBay shop. Unfortunately they do not ship out ouf the UK any more since 2015 or so 😞 (Although a complete airframe would be waaaaay to big for my living area).
State of Art in the time it was designed.
Yes, indeed. There must be serveral 100 years of manpower in these systems. Design started in the 1950s in the UK for space projects and similar platforms have been used to my knowledge on Ariane 1-3, several satellites, the Nimrod, the SEPECAT Jaguar, the Tornado, a prototype of Concorde, the Harrier and some Phantom F4s. But only the latest systems like the one from Tornado are all-in-one-box solutions. I admire the engineers having designed these and still I am curious and in search how assymbly and initial alignment was done.
Wow this is great. But there is one question remaining, regarding north/south. What If I leave the boundaries of the film. So basically the width? Is the whole map-area separated into stripes, so that the film jumps to a position, that includes my "out-of-bounds" position or is this just the end of the map?
Yeah - absolutley correct: If the current position is outside of the map covered a section is displayed which has a red background and big black letters "OFF MAP" - so easy to recognize.
@@finner4463 So the width of the film is the entire north/south coverage? Sounds as if this is not that much...
@@bruennlein No - along the film we have west-east and north/south coverage is implemented by multiple strips. For clarity, I prepared an image showing the map of Europe overlaid with the parts of the film: www.programmer-electronic-control.de/RPMDxplorerMap.jpg - you can see that the films have different height (i.e. scale) and that not the same area is present in all three scales in my film used on this video.
@@finner4463 Perfect. Thanks for clarificaion. That´s exactly how I initially thought it would be.
Would it be possible to do DIY maps? I mean using ordinary 35mm camera and color film to do the photos of some maps and then use it in this system. Where are the slide related data stored and how are they input in the system when changing film rolls? I mean the data that tells the system about each slide on the film so the system knows what area is it covering and what scale is it.
Do you have links for the manual for this INS system?
Can you explain all the switch positions like SH, NR, GPS, INS, MP, TE, G, P1, P2?
How can be the INS position updated? Is it possible to do GPS or TACAN or overfly or perhaps AG radar updates to get rid of the error on long flights?
Hi - lot of good questions. Some answers: (1) DIY films are difficult as one always gets the black bars between the pictures which require lot of additional film material for redndant information and increases software complexity. Even discussions with ARRI showed, that the professional film exposure equipment would need a new firmware to to that - to much for a hobby project.
(2) Side related data as you call it originally was a table of lat's and long's of the corners of the individual sections and x-poition on the film, e.g. 20 entries like 45°N-46°N, 7°E-15°E @ 2.55m. This table was loaded into the main computer. In my setup I implemented a soft-joystick to freely move the map and display the film position. Navigating to 200 cities and correlating that to google data I created a mapping function.
(3) Some information is in the Flight Manual which is available at various companies and even google books had it in the past (covers the mechanical FIN1010) - not the later laser gyro based system which's CDU was used in the movie).
(4) In the mechanical FIN1012 of Nimrod, one could simply enter an updated position during flight. In Tornado the navigator had a map display (CRPMD, similar to what you see in the video) but with overlaid ground mapping radar. Using a joystick he was able to align them to match and pressing a button updated the position - so some means of over-fly.
(5) The later replacement unit (which by the way can do all the 1010 can do but more and is a drop-in replacement) has GPS with Kalman fusing built in.
Great video! really interesting
Many thanks for your positive comment; End of April there was the vintage computer festival (VCFe) over here in Munich, where I gave 7 live demonstrations of this system. It survived transportation and the three intense days - people there also liked it; Some pictures can be seen here: www.baigar.de/TornadoComputerUnit/TimeLine.html#VCFE18
Tolles Video, Hut ab. Es gibt doch tatsächlich eine eigene Welt im Netz ohne Fäkalsprache, Kommerz und Verschwörungstheorien.........super ...;-)
Danke für die positiven Worte - ja, so eine Welt gibt es aber die community in Sachen (Vintage computing / Intertial Navigation / Avionik) ist echt klein. Gerade bei den Navis ist echt so viel KnowKow verloren gegangen :-(
Sind wohl nur Technik-Freaks hier - zu sehen an den paar Abonnenten. Ich fand den Kanal über IWM aus der Vorstellung des Tornado in Duxford.
@@wernerhahn141 Hi - das ist interessant. Wo genau? Hat das IWM einen Link irgendwo bei sich eingestellt? Habe mich schon gewundert, wo das plötzliche Interesse ab dem 23.11. herkam ;-)
In the video you are talking about the modern inertial navigation system using a laser gyro which you appear to actually personally have with you? You have also deconstructed the software for the ferranti system which was analysing and operating the mechanical gyros. Do you therefore have a working knowledge of the "start up alignment process" that an inertial navigation system uses to find latitude and true north? Can you confirm your unit can determine latitude with no reference information?
Hi and thanks for your message - yes, I also have got a laser based INS which is fully compatible. So for work on software and bringing components together I use this one to save live on the gyros, avoid the noise of the FIN1010 and to have faster start up times.
The FIN1010 in its first alignemt stage uses the acceleroemters to find "up". Than it turns the platform towards the north one entered via the panel. Now the gyroscopes are started and the analog computer within the FIN1010 gets active to maintain
the platform upright using accelerometers and simultaneously monitors any rotation aroung the EW-axis of the platform. If there is a component of earth rate visible, the orientation of the platform is not precisely towards north and orientation is corrected by torquing. This process is done until the gyros are spun up (2-3mins) and now the platform is aligned to better than 0.5° already. Having done this, the digital computer starts supervising the analog computer and injecting earth rate to torque the platform to compensate the earth rotation while the analog computer's filters are switched to slower but more accurate responses. In this mode, called fine alignment, the platform is further aligned until the errors are below certain thesholds. If temperature of the whole platform is alredy stable the whole alignemt takes 10-15 mins.
The platform can perfectly determine the angle between earth rotation and the vector of gravity and direction of north - so latitude and heading can be determined to better than 0.1° automatically, but for navigation purposes, i.e. dead reckoning by the digital computer, the position (lat & long) have to be entered via the panel in 0.1´ accuracy. Heading has to be entered to speed up the alignment process for the analog computer - 5° accuracy are fully sufficient here.
Hopefully this answered your questions?
That is a very thorough answer! Many thanks. Possibly i might have more questions at a later point but that seems to be everything I need! Cheers!!
You are welcome - just come back if you have additional questions. Unfortunately I check with youtube not very often, so you may use my email erik@baigar.de if you need a quick answer.
This brings back memories of many hours spent in tornado cockpits inside hardened aircraft shelters, after inputting Lat/Long into the DINCDU (always raised a smile when we replaced one of those & asked the supplier for a 'Dinky-doo' :) & sat there waiting for the INS to align prior to crew walk. Then some big arse idiot would jump up into the cockpit & upset the alignment for another 5 minutes. I seem to remember the align lamp flashing at different rates depending upon how close to fully aligned it was? Or maybe that was the phantom INS with the joystick for entering lat/long onto rotary counters & a wonderful mechanical Nav display unit.
Thanks for that interesting comment! With the alignment lamp you are refering to the later LASER based LINS from Honeywell, which probably entered service in the UK somewhen later in the 2000s. That indeed flashed when close to full alignment.
In the earlier (1972-2004(?)) FIN1010s there was a counter on the CDU counting down from 7 (inter coordinates) via 6 (alignment via accelerometers), 5 (turning on gyros), 4 (first prediction for gyro compass north), 3 (you can go if it is urgent) down to 0 (can not get better).
Was not aware that the "small" movement caused by a single person vs. the whole aircraft can upset the alignment process that dramatically ;-)
Inertial Navigation , a great American invention.. Charles Draper and MIT...
Yes - Apollo was a great boost for inertial navigation and without it no one would have reached the moon!
Did you ever get the chance to fly this in a plane? I'm also restoring vintage avionics to mount them in a 172 and fly them to make video content about the history of avionics. I'd love to work together on this.
No - not had the chance yet. Although I have an experimental setup for keeping one of these running for 1h+ from a battery which is quite a challenge due to the power requirement. So this would need conversion to a safely transportable rack which can go airborne. Still have that on my list but maybe after Corona only and I have been thinking of making an agreement with this company for the event: www.classicwings-bavaria.de/html/antonov2.php (probably more space for installation than on a 172).
@@finner4463 Yes, I think you'd have much more room in an AN-2 for sure. Even with the right and rear seat out there isn't that much room in the 172. How much power does it need and in what format(s) by the way? Just curious. I'd love to find an inertial system some day. Thanks again for the great video.
@@scienceappliedtotheunivers9871 Hi - thanks for getting in touch again! You can reach out via email any time at erik-at-baigar-dot-de and I have a LiIon battery for powering the INS; without the map display it would operate for 1.5h selfconatined from that battery. Power requirements are 12-13A at 28V with another 10A for the map display. Total weight (INS only) would be around 30kg + 12kg for the battery - the map-display with inverter etc. adds another 20kg. I think regarding space and having a proper rack it would fit the space of one of the rear seats of a 172.
Thanks for showing this piece of technology. I saw Singer had such in shop years ago, but never thought someone would take the effort to get it ro run - outside a Tornado... interesting to see it spools the film so fast, when switching scaling, for example. If you would have scrolled more eastward of Linz, what would have happened? Looked the map material was ending there, because of the big black bar, right? What happens if plane flies northward, e.g. to Hamburg? Is the Northern map available on the roll, too?
Hi and thanks for your comments. The systems I have got are from Helmut Singer and they have been from Nimrod as I learned recently and not Tornado. But there are subtile hardware differences I stumbled across in my repair efforts.
To answer your question: Yes, the former GDR etc. is not on the map and so east of Linz is a black bar followed by the next (more southern strip) of map starting at Nantes in France. Software of the maincomputer took care of moving to the next strip in Tornado if the current is left north- or southwards. If the aircraft went of film in western or estern direction or there are no suitable maps available, the display moved to a position on the film showing "off map" on a red background. I implemented all these features in my homebrew logger which was a substantial amount of work as I had to determine a very complex dataset relating x (0...12m) and y (0..36mm) of the film to latitudes, longitudes and selected scale.
My film is just 4m (so 1/3 of the capacity of the display) and covers Brussles...Milano in N-S direction and Atlantic...Linz in the W-E direction.
What sort of value would be in one of the fi101 Gimbal units these days
Good question - in the 1970ties they where around 250000UKP, so price of a multi-story house worth by then for just the black navigation box. One of the systems I have seen, still has got a sticker on it giving the price for a refurbished (used) unit in around 2000 for 103000EUR which the Luftwaffe paid for it. Summary: VERY EXPENSIVE!
...of course today units of unknown state are on ebay and rarely sell for more than UKP400 - platform only even less 😞
@@finner4463thanks for getting back to me, I've been considering buying some of these. I would love to see the gimbal stabilized as you shown in your video when the Gimbal was removed from the pressurised unit when you held it in your hand.. Or even to attempt to create a new moving map system, to make an in car non gps system like the James bond Aston Martin.. Aside from the main Gimbal platform unit, what else would I require for either just solely having the Gimbal powered to hold similar to your video.. Or to create the in car moving map system.. Ive seen a selection of available PCB board etc but not sure the bare minimum I would require or if it only works with a complete setup. Also the boards of various nature are available, however I have not seen any of the cables available.. Is this the case and the cables need to be fabricated by myself or any thought on this side? Just love the look of these units and was very impressed with your video start to finish, so would love to re create Partly, even if solely to turn the gimbal platform system on and hold it to be amazed, however I have a feeling it won't just need power but will also need the Gimbal platform to be externally controlled by a controller board of some sort to see the platform in action... Appreciate you my friend, kindly Craig
@@craigmorton644 What you require depends on the system - sometimes all is one box, sometimes it is 2 or three boxes. Cables are normally part of the airframe and need to be done yourself (one plug usually USD100 or more!) and you need to know the wiring. So: If you do not have a known working system the efforts are very big and I spent 1000s of hours learning how that stuff works, reverse-engineering and building that stuff. Today's technology does not make life easier here and that is why there are only very few systems of this kind still running...
@@finner4463 if I just wanted to turn the FIN1010 on to see it stabilising itself , would the only thing that will allow this be the ferranti test system you used... I think making it work aside from this as an actual moving map setup would maybe be too large a task. (for me in the meantime at least) if yes the ferranti test system would be required.. Is there even a small possibility I may be able to aquire one from somewhere? Many thanks, craig
Can you take this for a car ride (or even better a flight) and show us it in motion?
Anyway, amazing video.
We already had the inertial navigator (and the control panel) on board a car for a ride of 45min around Munich and it worked quite well. The problem generally is, that the navigator requires a lot of power (>25A at 12V) which is difficult to provide on an ordinary car. The display would require another 20A - so far I have no idea on how to do this onboard my car.
Making it airborne is still on my agenda for the next years and of course I will document this if it is going to happen. But before I need to repair at least one backup unit and I want ro improve accuracy of my unit to be at least wihtin the original spec or better...
Thanks for watching the video and for providing feedback!
großartige Technik--Archäologie, bin sprachlos. Was kommt als nächstes? :-)
Klaus Mueller Ja, diese Boxen sind wirklich Meisterwerke der Ingenieurskunst. Vor allem die FIN1010s mit ihrer Mischung aus Mechanik in der Platform, analoger Elektronik (teilweise auch zum Rechnen) und dem archaischen bitseriellen digitalen Computer...
WOW!
What kind of accelerometers are used in there?
Gyro is easy, the amazing/magic stuff are the accelerometers and how they manage the double integration from acceleration => velocity=>position over an hour, without drifting all over the place.
650m error over an hour, is about equal to 0.0001m/s² or 1300m/h² accuracy in absolute acceleration measurement.
If hypothetical accelerometer with 1kg test mass is used, that would require a resolution of 0.01mgF/0.1mN, to measure the force change caused by 0.0001m/s² acceleration...
(if I calculated correctly... ;-)
The accelerometers are type F2A by Ferranti. Acceleration is compensated by a magnet and hence converted into a current. That current is integrated in a cap and a precise, oven stabilized current source is used to clear the cap. That converts the integrated acceleration into a pulse. These are integrated by the computer (digitally) giving the 2nd integration.
But actually, it is much harder making gyroscopes which are good enough regarding drift. In one hour you probably travel 1000km and having a maximum error of 650m there makes a permitted drift of 0.037°/h. The gyro in a smart phone is °per minute (not hour). On the other hand, the gimballed navigation system can handle 30° per second, giving a dynamic range of ~3E6 which is about 10 times better than the accelerometer's... I could easily give a 2h talk on these floated rate integrating gyros ;-)
Your analysis makes a lot of sense, and there are already a lot of accelerometers at this level, so we can talk about it
Ineed there are not many accelerometers at this level. Nowadays rather poor accelerometers are used and GPS eliminatges the long term drift isues.
Hi!
Ill write this in english but im from germany so in case you would get in touch with me we could move over to german :)
I just got a PHI-4A Wind calculator from a starffighter, i did not plan on getting the entire unit but now that its here i will have to get it running. While i understand how it works (its not really complicated) I have no schematics at all and the wiring is very difficult to rout on paper by hand. The PCBs are all coated and glued, i will not take them apart. Can you recommend a source for schematics for 70s military aviation?
Hi - there is no general answer to the question. As that stuff is military it is not easy getting hands on documentation - maybe try posting in a facebook group on the F104. A simple google search points me there - www.radelow.ch/anderes/avionik/inert/phi4a/index.htm - and that guy surely has some know-how on the PHI-4A ;-) Good luck!
If i pause the video at 5:14, are those two circular components in the frame above your hand are AC or DC cooling fans?
Yes, these small inlets are leading to 1" screamer fans (incredibly loud fans running at 24000 1/min). Normally the inertial platform is enclosed in a vessl pressurized (2-3 bars) of a mixture of N2 and He2 (latter for improved thermal conductivity) and these fans ensure isothermal conditions within the vessel.
Around the vessel is a two layer construction and the airflow around the vessel is controlled to helt all the electrical heaters within the vessel to maintain the correct temperature for optimum floating of the gyroscopes.
@@finner4463 the fans seem to be a brushless type. there are three wires on each. I have one of this beautiful Unit, but without Power and controller, just the unit. I am amazed about how complex hand-made stuff it is. just the motors have an insane amount of wiring, I dont have any info how the controllers manage to drive that but just having this old piece of art is mindblowing
Complimenti per l'ottimo video.....da appassionato di Tornado IDS, mi sono sempre chiesto come una tecnologia analogica potesse riprodurre mappe così precise a video....ho una domanda da farle, ma la pellicola a colori della mappa di volo veniva caricata sul FIN 1010 prima di ogni volo e solo per la rotta stabilita o riusciva a coprire la superficie aerea di una nazione intera esempio tutta la Germania ??
Hi Daniele, sorry for not being able to reply in Italian language. Yes, the accuracy of these systems is for me still today quite amazing! Within the display there is space for 12m of color film which is enough to cover e.g. complete north Europe (De, CH and the northern parts of It and Fr) in three different scales of map. The display with its diameter of 18cm shows e.g. 25, 50 or 100 miles of area. Hopefully this answers your question?
Thank you for answering my question.
Any time welcome...
Incredible video! May I ask, are the map films original, in the sense that were used onboard the Tornado?
Hi Davide - thanks for the positive feedback. Regarding the map material: I think it was never used on real sorties as it is a copy of the approval film: Mr Kiening, who developed the ingenious equipment for map rectification and exposure onto standard cine film had to produce a map film which was checked at the manufacturer of the displays (Ferranti) to validate the exposure process. I am just happy, that south of Germany is part of this film which is not the full length of 12m (total Europe) but only around 4m. But apart from this: Many thanks to Mr. H. Kiening for supplying this wonderful piece of history to me ;-) (See the movie starting at 2:12).
Thank you very much for your answer. I am particularly interested in the test patterns that you show around 10:00. I would assume that the first test pattern was copied from the original maps, while the second shows the type of film used by Mr Kiening? Do you know which types of film where used in the original maps, and which test pattern was shown? Thank you very much for your help :)
Hi Davide, thanks for your message (and for your private email). I have the "official" header on the film too, but I did not show it in the video because it is very boring. But I can offer to supply an image of those - 1st there is a header with written text, what is on the film, but this header is to big to be displayed on the RPMD or CRPMD completely (ony a 8mm portion of the 35mm film is imaged to the silked screen). 2nd there is a "ZeroPattern" which had to be aligned with the central marker of the display (RPMD or CRPMD) to verify correct positioning of the film. Apart from this I can supply the test pattern displayed on the TV/Tab displays driven from the WFG1: www.baigar.de/TornadoComputerUnit/TV-Tab-TFT-OnWFG.JPG
Thank you very much! I would be very interested in the zero pattern, that is what I have not been able to find. The manual shows a tiny imagine but it is impossible to understand what it is. Thank you!
Bravooooooooooooo
Thanks - highly appreciated feedback ;-)
Song name begining at 2:50 anyone?
That is easy: That is the moonlight sonata from Beethoven, No 14, Op 27, see ruclips.net/video/vQVeaIHWWck/видео.html
loud music?
Yes - got that feedback 3-4 times now and I hope I did better in my later videos. Sorry...
Why not to put it in a car and see how accurate it is in a car environment (lots of speed fluctuations and small accelerations)?
Together with a hobby-äcolleague, we had one of these in a BMW and took it to a ride around Munich. But it is not that easy as it may sound: Power requirements (>25A at 12V for the navigator without display) are difficult to realize on board a normal car. On our ride, the inadequate cooling also lead to position runaway after 40 mins and a forced shutdown 5 mins later. But I guess, that a maximum error of 1km/h should be possible in a car ;-)
I never realized that the Dachau is actually a city and it is still there.. For Czech ppl it is a word for a concentration camp
;-) Yes, Dachau is meanwhile an important suburb to Munich - lot of people commute from there to the center of Munich. But yes - lot of people are immediately thinking of the sad old days when hearing this name.
Really needs louder background music as I was still able to hear a few words.
The content is interesting such a shame it's so hard to hear.
Thanks for the feedback - got that feedback twice and took care of that in the later ones. Sorry, that was my first one for RUclips...
Now make a Wiimote from it!
Hmmm, I doubt anyone can win using the FIN as a WIImote: The 28.5kg prevent
any fast movements, but it would definitively be an excellent weight training replacing
many gym visits ;-)
да.. информационная осведомленность пилота в западных странах всегда была в приоритете..
Интересно, а в СССР таких карт не было?
Хорошие системы навигации уже были, я в этом уверен! (Простите за плохой русский переводчик!)
Amazing work of yours getting it to come alive. And it works!! I've added a link to your video on my Tornado tribute fansite. www.moodurian.com/tornado. The page is: www.moodurian.com/tornado/tor/avionics.html. Thanks.
Hi Frankie, thanks for setting a link to the video! I did not even know, that there was a DOS based flight sim - this obviously is a must-have ;-) The upcoming weekend I am going to show the system on the vintage computer festival in Munich and I am also giving a talk on it. Hopefully the monster will survive the many demo cycles I am expecting during the three-day event. Please keep up your good work in maintaining your page!
Thanks. Back in 1993 this DOS Tornado simulator was as accurate as you could get with 320x240 pixels. See www.moodurian.com/tornado/seats/pilot.html and www.moodurian.com/tornado/seats/navigator.html heh.
Thanks for the links - I just obtained an originally packed set of documentation and floppies for this game. Hopefully it will run in a vmware ;-) On your page I notice, that the simulated Tornado there already has got the more modern map display in the front cockpit (I think it is calles EHDD) not my old RPMD.
RPMD = Radar Projected Map Display systems. goo.gl/ei2T88
EHDD = Enhanced Head-Down Display goo.gl/0rup9B
FYI, BAE Systems TARDIS document (PDF) here: goo.gl/hMxZd1
BTW, Tornado runs best in DOSBox and Oracle's VirtualBox. See "Tornado Beginners start here" at goo.gl/aFnwJK
FYI, Tornado's flat-shaded polygon graphics was already outdated by 2 years when Digital Integration released Tornado in 1993. Its 332-page printed manual is a classic. Back in the 1990s, it was the most realistic low-level flight simulator for the PC and Amiga. Its mission planner was way ahead of anything that the RAF had in 1993. Its synchronised multi-plane mission planning was unmatched by LOMAC even in 2011. To this day, it is still the complete combat simulator package complete with brutal AI and excellent autopilot modes. And it was written mainly in 16 bit x86 Assembly language. For gamers today with fast PCs, I would recommend X-Trident's Tornado for X-Plane 10. See goo.gl/s4U90S for details and the Mudspike review at goo.gl/wUA7xe .
Hi - many thanks for your hints on flight simulators. I have never looked into flight simulators before, but the X-Tridents implementation looks really realistic! Meanwhile I ordered one of the vintage packages and I will give it a try, just out of curiosity ;-) With the displays, the CRPMD is the back seaters display allowing overlay of radar and map to make adjustments to the position (therefor C for "Combined"). The pilot's display is the RPMD, alias "Repeater Projected Map Display" which only offers map - the EHDD I guess had much more features and of course TARDIS for the navigator is a different kind of "machine" I think. The RPMD is the one, my logger can control and BTW the RPMD was controlled from the CRPMD's electronics... Have a nice time...
The music is to loud , it is not easy to hear what is being said . So I stopped listening after a few minutes.
...I am sorry to hear this, but this was my first RUclips video. I will take this into account with the one in preparation regarding the VCFe 2017 in Munich and perhaps I can generate a news version of this movie with music muted, too.
Not to worry , wish you well !!!!!!!! :-)
Absolutely amazing!
Thanks for the feedback - highly appreciated!
@@finner4463 great video. My grandad was a MOD engineer and spent many years working on the tornado in the UK and Germany, not really sure which parts, but I think it was something to do with weapons/fire control
@@dougsteel7414 Of course, there where lot of people busy keeping that stuff alive at many locations. I had the opportunity to visit the maintenance facility in Marham/UK once after this video was uploaded: Had a deep dive there and a really great time as it was my first and only time so close to these birds ;-) Of course mostly interested in navigation, display, aerodynamics and computer related stuff.
@@finner4463 Somewhere, I've got a metal model of one, with moving swing wings, that he got from work and gave to me about 40 years ago
@@dougsteel7414 Nice - you should keep it as it surely has got some personal value and also it is a nice collector's piece ;-)