Word: gyros
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...compass-oldest known navigating instrument-has been revolutionized. Last week Bendix Aviation Corp. announced a new automatic compass that makes the old magnetic needle* look as obsolete as a warrior's spear. The new "gyro flux gate" compass, designed especially for aircraft, is already at work guiding United Nations flyers unerringly to their targets...
...newer gyro compass (about thirty years old), which uses a gyroscope that tends to seek the North Pole, is an improvement for sea navigation. But its bulk and the quick, violent turns of airplane flight make the gyro compass impractical in the air. Plane movements also raise hob with a magnetic compass...
...Different Matter. The gyro flux gate compass, on which Bendix engineers worked seven years, is based on an entirely different principle. Exactly how it works is still a military secret (at least one of the instruments has fallen into Axis hands, but its inventors believe it will take Axis scientists years to figure it out). Its basic parts are a triangular set of coils and a gyroscope. The function of the gyroscope (which spins at 10,000 revolutions a minute) is simply to keep the instrument level during a plane's turns and lunges. The coils, which replace...
...torpedo. Know the names and be able to recognize the use of all special tools used with torpedoes. Be able to charge a torpedo and to handle war heads. Understand and be able to trace fuel, air, water and oil lines in torpedoes. Be able to balance a gyro and know the theory of the gyro. Be able to carry out all regulations in regard to care, repair and tests of torpedo and torpedo mechanisms. Know the application of Ohm's law, Kirzchoff's law and other principles of electricity. Understand Navy pyrotechnics, principles of mine laying and depth charge...
Today. Bill Lear is founder, president and principal owner (51%) of Lear Avia, Inc., which makes radios, instruments and control accessories for airplanes. Best known is his Learmatic Navigator, a combined automatic radio direction finder and directional gyro, for which he got the Frank Hawks Memorial Award last December. Better seller is a cheaper, non-automatic direction finder for use in private planes. In 1939, Lear Avia lost $15,000 on a $222,000 volume. Said Lear then: "I'd give my life for $55,000." Just out of a Miami hospital (result of a crackup...