L-1011 Trainer Installation: Flight Director Integration Tests

L-1011 Flight Director Integration Tests

The ADIs in the L-1011 simulator incorporate Flight Director (FD) bars for Pitch, Roll and Yaw. Today I worked on moving Flight Director information from X-Plane to the ADIs. To do so, I am using ARNIC 429 Label 170, 171 and 172. The Flight Director bus is a slow speed bus and FD information is passed to the ADI at 12.5Kbps. For the first few tests tonight I focused on the roll and pitch data. X-Plane actually does not have Flight Director data for guided yaw, however, that information can be derived from a number of other X-Plane data points.

The video below is a short demo of a Flight Director guided roll to the left to heading 225 and then we see a flight director guided roll-out at the target heading. Watch the HSI and the ADI in particular:

p.s. Ignore the erratic Localizer indicator on the ADI, it's only getting test data.

L-1011 Trainer Installation: ARCIN 429 for Altimeter and Audio Side Panel

L-1011 Altimeter ARINC 429 Integration Tests

Today Jim Blasco and myself worked on doing ARINC 429 label integration tests with the Altimeter. The Altimeter uses Label 204 and due to the fact that it uses a slightly different variant of a ARINC 429 compatible protocol it has to run on it's own bus. The 204 Label for the Altimeter uses a 32bit word that does not have a SSM field or Parity Bit.

The short demo video bellows shows data being sent to the ADI, HSI, VSI and ALT.  The next steps will be to send actual simulator from X-Plane to the instruments. 

Besides the tests with the Altimeter we also installed the first of two audio side panels. The L-1011 Cockpit Procedure Trainer did not come with these side panels and we got them from an actual (British Airways) L-1011. The audio side panels provide the hookups for the headset (boom and headset) as well as a connector for the hand microphone. The side panel also has room to store the headset in.

L-1011 Audio Side-Panel Installation

L-1011 Avionics Bending: Collins ADI Power On Test (Video)

The video above shows the Collins ADI used on the Lockheed L-1011 during my first power-on test. According to the tear-down tags that came with the unit these ADIs had not been powered ever since 1998. The power-on test is a gradual test where I power on the device and run one or two functions. I study the power consumption and look for obvious problems with the power supplies. In later avionics bending posts you will see the devices progressively integrated with the flight simulation environment.

The power-on tests are important to the project because the show me what does and what does not work. So far I have had a pretty good success rate and I would say that about 75% of the instruments that I have bought over the years out of surplus have powered up.

In the video above you see the Glideslope function active in both normal as well as Flight Director, or Gate, mode. In gate mode the pilot would receive the Localizer/Glideslope information superimposed on the ADI as a round gate. The pilot would simply fly the aircraft down the gate or the Autoland system would follow the Gate.

The ADI is powered by a 115VAC 400Hz power source and the ADI and LOC deviations are driven by a National Instrument 6024E card over a range of -3VDC to 3VDC. 

Avionics Bending: COLLINS ADI Functional Analysis

I was able to located quite a lot of information on the Collins ADIs used on the L-1011. First up is a functional diagram that shows how the approach gate is being driven. I am actually quite fascinated with this concept of the approach gate because it is such a rather unusual feature.

As you can see in the schematic above, the gate is driven by a number of reference systems. Namely the YAW computer, the PITCH computer and the VHF NAV radio. After all the signal processing, the gate is driven by two motors; one for up and down and another one for left and right. You can see the mechanical linkages for the gate in the pictures of the Collins ADI that I posted yesterday. Another interesting feature of this ADI is the Roll Out pointer. See the schematic for the roll-out pointer below:

The roll out pointer receives data only from the Yaw Computer. The pointer movement is actually driven by Left and Right signal that is combined in an OpAmp.

Lastly, here is a schematic that shows how the Roll and Pitch displays in the ADI are controlled. This is completely synchro driven:

The system has one synchro transmitter for pitch and one for roll. There is a primary and an alternate channel for the pitch and roll source which are: (1) Vertical Gyro 1 and (2) Vertical Gyro 2. The source is selected via the ALT Source panel on both the Captains' and F/Os main instrument panel.

Avionics Bending: COLLINS Attitude Director Indicator (ADI) (Analysis)

Thanks to Lee King at Boneyard2U I found a set of original L-1011 ADIs. The ADIs are made by Collins Radio Company of Cedar Rapids, Iowa and are from the early 1970s. Unlike the SFENA ADIs that I blogged about several months ago these ADIs do not use the ARINC 429 protocol. They are purely driven by synchs and resolvers which makes them a lot less friendly to connect to modern computers than the SFENA ARINC 429 devices. The exact type of the instruments are 622-1389-001. Power input for the device is rated at 115VAC 400Hz with 5VAC/DC for lighting and the decision height (DH) annunciator.  

The pictures below show the ADI with the radio altitude indicator. Not all ADIs had this feature ... the instruments that I have do not have the Radio Altitude Shutter and the associated indicator as shown below.

A really interesting feature is the APPROACH GATE target. This is somewhat unique to this ADI. In other words you used this target to fly the aircraft down the ILS approach path ... just point the fixed aircraft symbol at the target and your there.  Below is an image of what that target looks like in real life:

Approach Gate in Magenta

Let's open the instrument up. The first image is the instrument from the top. What you can see right away is that there is no big sphere in the instrument as we had in the SFENA. The pick indication is accomplish with a "tape". 

Image 1: TOP

The top image shows the electronics in the back of the instrument and the large pointer for the Roll Out Pointer. The flight director bars, which are the yellow pointers on the left of the image, are actually biased out of sight in the top view. 

Image 2: Left

The left hand side pictures shows the square box for the pitch tape (in the right hand third of the instrument). 

Image 3: Bottom 

In the bottom view we can see the large pointer for the FAST/SLOW indicator. On the right hand side we see the underside of the bus board for the electronics.

Below are two more images of the box with the attitude tape in it and the mechanics that drive it. It's a very interesting mechanism. One limitation that this mechanism has is that you can not "roll" through the complete pitch regime. In other words the range of the instrument is +/- 90º pitch and 360º roll.

Avionics Bending: SFENA ADIs are Going on a Trip

The SFENA ADIs are going on a trip to Spain for a few months. Javier Pérez at the Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC) will use the instruments in support of a paper that he will be writing over the next few months. The project will be heavily focused on driving the instruments with the ARINC 429 protocol. It will be really cool to see what Javier will be able to do with them. I will post some updates from time to time as he makes progress with the ADIs.

Avionics Bending: Attitude Director Indicator - ADI (Analysis and Pinout)

First power up of the two pilot side instruments. Without the ARINC 429 data the flags will not clear, however, the measurements on the power supplies show that they are intact. I am really curious to see if the instruments will work after being on the line for over 6800 hours, having been parked in the Arizona desert for 10+ years and being rough handled during de-install ... we will see over the next few weeks. The next step here will be to write the ARINC bridge between xPlane and the avionics buses.

So, just like the HSI from yesterday's post, the SFENA (Thales Group) ADI is a truly awesome instrument and shows some very clever mechanical engineering. Both the N32 and the N33 are very much a complete computer in a box that does both the ARINC 429 handling as well as all of the servo channel handling.

The main subsystems of the ADI are:

1. Input Processor
2. Central Processing Unit
3. A/D Converter
4. Attitude Servo Channels
5. Pointer and Command Bar Servomechanism
6. Failure Warning Indicators
7. Output Processor
8. Power Supply / Lighting

The ADI actually ingests fewer ARING 429 labels than the HSI does. The N33 HSI receives data on 8 ARINC buses, while the N32 ADI only receives data on 5 of the ARINC avionics buses. Here is a list of the buses and the respective ARINC lablels:

Bus 1 - FAST/SLOW (Label 142)
Bus 2 - Not used
Bus 3 - Localizer (Label 173), Glideslope (Label 174)
Bus 4 - Reciprocal ADI - Sin/Cos Recopy (Label 325), Sin/Cos Recopy (Label 324)
Bus 5 - Roll Angle (Label 325) and Pitch Angel (Label 324)
Bus 6 - Flight Director Commands - Roll Command (Label 141), Pitch Command (Label 140) and Yaw Command (Label 143)

All of the buses above run either at 12 Kb/s or 100 Kb/s ... Bus1 and Bus4 are 100 Kb/s buses.

Here is the pin-out for the SFENA N32 ADI J1 connector:

q	Remote Test	Switch Input
A	115V 400 Hz	Power
B	115V 400 Hz	Power
P	BUS 1	ARINC 429
R	BUS 1	ARINC 429
y	BUS 3	ARINC 429
w	BUS 3	ARINC 429
a	BUS 4	ARINC 429
b	BUS 4	ARINC 429
T	BUS 5 Primary	ARINC 429
U	BUS 5 Primary	ARINC 429
X	BUS 5 Alternate	ARINC 429
Y	BUS 5 Alternate	ARINC 429
V	Bus 5 Alternate and Primary Switch	Switch Input
K	BUS 6 - Flight Director Channel 1	ARINC 429
L	BUS 6 - Flight Director Channel 1	ARINC 429
G	BUS 6 - Flight Director Channel 2	ARINC 429
H	BUS 6 - Flight Director Channel 2	ARINC 429
FF	Pin Program CPT/FO	Logic
M	FD/A Flag	Logic
HH	F/S Flag	Logic
AA	G/S Flag	Logic
GG	LOC Flag	Logic
EE	FD Flag	Logic
z	Monitor Bus - Reciproacl ADI	ARINC 429
y	Monitor Bus - Reciproacl ADI	ARINC 429
e	Decision Height Warning Light
f	Decision Height Warning Light
D	Integral Ligthing	5V
E	Integral Ligthing	5V
g	Validity Output Glideslope
h	Validity Output Flight Director
m	Validity Output Fast/Slow

To see the ADI in check this blog posting: SFENA ADI Working with XPlane

Avionics Bending: SFENA Attitude Director Indicator (ADI) (Analysis)

Today's posting is on a set of beautiful Attitude Director Indicators. The ones that I selected for the project are actually not common on the L-1011, but they flew on an Airbus A300. Which from a time period point of view, overlaps with the L-1011. The devices are made by SFENA, France and the part number is N32aAM with an original manufacturing date of January 1982.


The ADI as indicators for:

• Aircraft Attitude
• Bank Angle
• Turn Coordination
• Glide Slope Deviation
• Localizer Deviation
• Fast/Slow on Approach
• Flight Director Pitch
• Flight Director Roll
• Decision Height
• Attention

To see the ADI in check this blog posting: SFENA ADI Working with XPlane

The next few pictures show the unit without the back cover. The instrument is really beautifully engineered. Just as with many other SFENA devices, the entire instrument is built very modular. The ball representing the gyro has two motors: (a) one for pitch inside the globe and (b) another for roll on the backside of the C-shaped mount.





Both the roll and the pitch motors are supported by a 400Hz resolver.




The two flight director bars in action.

1) Flight Director directs a turn to the left.



2) Flight Director directs a climbing right turn.