[448] in Humor
HUMOR: How Inertial Guidance Systems work.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew A. Bennett)
Tue Sep 13 09:24:13 1994
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 1994 09:19:24 EDT
From: "Andrew A. Bennett" <abennett@MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 94 15:10:17 PDT
From: Connie_Kleinjans@Novell.COM (Connie Kleinjans)
Wondrous...
From: Craig Fuget <cfuget@hposl20.cup.hp.com>
There's a career as a high school English teacher in this for
somebody...
>
> Wherever you go, there you are [were]....
>
> -Edward.
>
<Forwards no longer where they were.>
>
> =============================================================================
> (from rec.humor.funny)
>
> The following article is from the Canadian "Airspace Newsletter", issue 1/94
> printed by the Transport Canada. I hope this article will be able to help you
> as much as it helped me to understand IGS!!!
>
> Articles printed in Airspace Newsletter is a collection of letters from pilots
> and distribution of the articles from the newsletter is encouraged, as long as
> references made to the newsletter.
>
>
> morteza@innovus.com
> ===============================================================================
> INERTIAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM SIMPLIFIED
>
> We are not sure who the author of the following article is, however we feel
> that the article is one of the best, clearly defined descriptions of the magic
> that resides withing the aircraft's black boxes.
>
> The aircraft knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows
> where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it
> isn't from where it is (whichever is the greater), it obtains a difference,
> or deviation.
>
> The Inertial Guidance System uses deviations to generate error signal commands
> which instruct the aircraft to move from a position where it is to a position
> where it isn't, arriving at a position where it wasn't, or now is.
> Consequently, the position where it is, is now the position where it wasn't;
> thus, it follows logically that the position where it was is the position where
> it isn't.
>
> In the event that the position where the aircraft now is, is not the position
> where it wasn't, the Inertial Guidance System has acquired a variation.
> Variations are caused by external factors, the discussions of which are beyond
> the scope of this report.
>
> A variation is the difference between where the aircraft is and where the
> aircraft wasn't. If the variation is considered to be a factor of significant
> magnitude, a correction may be applied by the use of the autopilot system.
> However, use of this correction requires that the aircraft now knows where it
> was because the variation has modified some of the information which the
> aircraft has, so it is sure where it isn't.
>
> Nevertheless, the aircraft is sure where it isn't (within reason) and it knows
> where it was. It now subtracts where it should be from where it isn't, where
> it ought to be from where it wasn't (or vice versa) and intergrates the
> difference with the product of where it shouldn't be and where it was; thus
> obtaining the difference between its deviation and its variation, which is
> variable constant called "error".
>
>
