About what automated flight is like?

Can an airplane go flying without a pilot, automatically? In 1914, an American inventor, Sparelli, used the gyroscopic pointer on the horizon as a standard for level flight, measured the deviation of the airplane from this standard with an electrical device, and then corrected the deviation with a mechanical device, which kept the airplane in a level-flying state. This is the world's first autopilot. Although it can only keep the plane's flight, but it gives future generations to enlightenment, since the beginning of the era of automatic flight.

The 1970s, electronic computers into the aircraft, the aircraft has its own electronic "brain". First of all, the use of three electronic computers (flight control computer) to control the flight status of the airplane 3 axes. At this time the airplane can not only be controlled to fly flat, but also can control the turn and lift. Considering the airplane in the turn and lift movement, its thrust must change accordingly, in order to successfully complete these processes, it is necessary to control the engine thrust at the same time. In the second step, a thrust control computer was added to the airplane to manage the thrust. Aircraft because of the ability to control their own flight attitude and thrust, the initial realization of the automatic arbitrary flight. But it was also limited to flight that remained on a set course. It has not yet been fully linked with the instrumentation system on board to respond in time to changes in the outside world. In order to make the aircraft really realize the whole process of automatic flight control, that is, to be able to "independent and autonomous" flight, it is necessary to unify the management of the above two systems (attitude and thrust) and with other instrumentation systems to implement a large joint. So the third step was to put another more powerful computer on the airplane to manage and coordinate the flight. This overall computer is called the flight management computer. It is the central hub of the airplane. In the database of this center, the data of each airport and each route are stored. As long as the pilot selects the beginning and end of the route and inputs the commands into this computer, it can direct the airplane to take off, climb, cruise and descend until landing at the destination airport instead of the pilot. This system can also be instantly issued in the flight process, so that the aircraft in accordance with the best flight status, the most reasonable use of thrust, the most economical fuel consumption to fly the whole course, thus realizing the full automation of the flight. It sounds like the computer system controlled by this set of airplanes to fly than by the pilot control to fly better, then, is not the future of the airplane flight does not need a pilot? The answer is: no. One of the reasons is that the aircraft navigation line to be set by the driver and entered into the computer; reason two is the aircraft in the take-off and landing of the two phases, too many factors change, the computer can only be pre-programmed action, does not have the ability to respond flexibly; reason three is that even if the aircraft in the cruise state, the driver can not do any action to control the aircraft, but he must monitor the machine! "The third reason is that even though the pilot can control the airplane without any action when the airplane is in cruise, he must monitor the work of the machine's "brain. In the event of any failure or lack of timely response of this "brain", the pilot must immediately take over the task of driving the aircraft, so as to ensure flight safety.

Knowledge Points

Mach number

Mach number, used in subsonic, supersonic or compressible flow calculations, most commonly used in aerospace and aviation. Often written Mach number, it is a similar parameter for high-speed flow. What we usually call the Mach number of an airplane is the ratio of the airplane's flight speed to the speed of sound in the local atmosphere (i.e., a certain altitude, temperature, and atmospheric density). For example, Ma1.6 means that the speed of the airplane is 1.6 times the local speed of sound.

Named after the Austrian physicist Mach (1836-1916) and abbreviated to M-number, expressed as M = V/a, the Mach number is the most important parameter for measuring the compressibility of air. It is defined as the ratio of an object's speed to the speed of sound, i.e. a multiple of the speed of sound. Which is subdivided into a variety of Mach numbers, such as the flight Mach number used by the aircraft in the air, the airflow Mach number of the airflow velocity, the local Mach number of the flow velocity at a certain point in the complex flow field, and so on. The structure of an airplane Most airplanes consist of five main parts: wings, fuselage, engines, maneuvering systems, and landing gear.

Wing: The main function of the wing is to provide lift for the aircraft to support the aircraft in the air, but also play a certain role in stabilization and maneuvering. Ailerons and flaps are generally installed on the wing. Maneuvering ailerons can make the aircraft roll; lowering flaps can increase the lift coefficient of the wing. In addition, the wing can also be installed on the engine, landing gear and fuel tanks. There are various shapes and numbers of wings. In the early days of underdeveloped aviation technology in order to provide greater lift, the aircraft to biplane or even multi-wing aircraft, but modern aircraft are generally monoplane.

Tail: The tail is also a wing, but it is mainly used to balance the flight attitude and maneuver the aircraft, such as takeoff, landing, and turning in the air. It includes horizontal tail (flat tail) and vertical tail (drogue). The horizontal tail consists of a fixed horizontal stabilizing surface and a rotatable elevator (some models of civil and military aircraft have movable control surfaces throughout the flat tail, without a dedicated elevator). The vertical tail, on the other hand, consists of a fixed vertical stabilizing surface and a movable rudder.

Fuselage: the main function of the fuselage is to load the crew, passengers, weapons, cargo and a variety of equipment; but also other parts of the aircraft, such as the tail, wings and engines and so on into a whole. If the fuselage and wings are connected as a whole, the airplane is called a flying wing.

Engine: some are called engines, which are used to produce tension or thrust to move the airplane forward. Secondly it also provides electricity for the electrical equipment on the airplane and gas for the air-conditioning equipment and other air-using equipment. Engine is like the human heart, modern aircraft power plant mainly includes turbine engines and piston engines two. The more widely used power plant has four kinds: aviation piston engine plus propeller propulsion; turbojet engine; turboprop engine; turbofan engine. With the development of aviation technology, rocket engines, ram engines, etc., are also gradually adopted.

Landing gear: landing gear, also known as landing gear, is used to support the aircraft and enable it to take off and land on the ground and other horizontal surfaces and parking. Land aircraft landing gear, generally by the shock-absorbing struts and wheels, in addition there are specialized for seaplane landing with a float device landing gear and snow takeoff skid landing gear. It is used to support the airplane during takeoff and landing skidding, ground taxiing and parking.

Maneuvering system: including a variety of display aircraft flight attitude instrumentation, used to control the aircraft engine power, maneuvering aircraft takeoff, landing and turning, military aircraft have to do a variety of tactical maneuvers, such as the earliest by the Su-27 fighters to do the "Cobra" maneuver and so on. Due to the aircraft in the high altitude, high-speed flight by the force is very large, modern aircraft are usually hydraulic, electric transmission control system to assist the pilot.

The flight controls available to the pilot in the cockpit of a modern airplane usually include:

The main controls: the stick or wheel and rudder stirrups. In some airplanes with teletype control systems, the stick or wheel has been simplified to a joystick located on the pilot's side.

Auxiliary maneuvers: flap handles, leveling buttons, and throttle handles.

With the development of electronics, the form of flight maneuvers has changed radically. In large aircraft, the traditional mechanical control system has been gradually replaced by a more advanced teletype control system, the full use of computer systems, so that the flight control system has undergone a fundamental change in the pilot's operation is no longer like a direct manipulation of the aircraft movements, but more like to give the aircraft to give instructions for movement. As some of the teletype maneuvering system of the aircraft canceled the original driving stick or driving plate and other devices and changed to the side of the stick manipulation, the cockpit space appears to be more relaxed than in the past, so some drivers call such cockpits as "flight office".