GB433404A - Improvements in or relating to automatic piloting devices - Google Patents

Abstract

433,404. Automatic steering-gear for ships and aircraft. CONSTANTIN, L., 26, Rue EugÞne Flachat, Paris. Sept. 18, 1934, No. 26788. Convention date, Sept. 19, 1933. [Classes 4 and 114] [See also Group XXI] In an automatic steering system for aircraft, submarines, torpedoes, and other vehicles, an absolute direction indicator, such as a compass, is associated, by electrical relay mechanism, with a wind vane by which the rudder is adjusted to correct lateral movement of, for example, an aeroplane relatively to the air or other medium. The Constantin wind vane shown applied to an aeroplane, includes vanes mounted on the forward angles of a trapezium having one pivot 7 fixed and the long parallel side 6 extended so that the direction in which the apparatus faces relatively to the centre line of the aeroplane may be adjusted by a gyroscopic compass 8 through an electric relay. One of the sides of the trapezium forms a lever 2 connected by a link 4 to the rudder 5. The lever 6 is adjusted by screw-and-nut mechanism actuated by a motor 14 which is supplied with current from the batteries 21, 22 so as to drive it in either direction according to whether the arm 10 on the ring 8<a> of the gyroscopic compass is engaging contact 12 or 13. The movement of the arm is limited by brush 17 sliding clear of either of the contacts 19, 20 as the arm 6 is operated. The electric relay may be controlled by any one of a number of absolute direction indicators by the switch shown in Fig. 2. The three leads from the relay are connected directly to rings 23, 24, 25 and the rings 24, 25 are always connected to contacts 30, 28 on the arm 26 which may be rotated until the contacts 30, 28 engage corresponding contacts 13a, 12<a> on any one of a number of compasses or other direction indicators.