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Automatic flight controls in fixed wing aircraft–The first 100 years

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2016

R. W. Howard
R. W. Howard*
Affiliation:
Marconi-Elliott Avionic Systems Ltd
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Extract

In 1973, automatic flight controls is one of the most exacting fields of technology, requiring a balanced combination of art, science and human understanding, and the efforts of large project management teams backed by adequate resources to bring any new concept to fruition.

Today's systems derive almost entirely from the technology of the past 25 years, and hence it is little known that there was some activity in automatic flight control for fixed wing aircraft as long ago as 1873, some 30 years before the world-changing events at Kittyhawk and when mechanical flight was still confined to balloons and a few rudimentary gliders.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Aeronautical Journal , Volume 77 , Issue 755 , November 1973 , pp. 533 - 562
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Aeronautical Society 1973 

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References

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