Anti-gravity?

In aircraft instruments, gyros are used in attitude, compass and turn coordinators. These instruments contain a wheel or rotor rotating at a high RPM which gives it two important properties: rigidity and precession. The rotor or gyro can be electrically or vacuum / pressure driven by a special pump on the engine.

The rotor of a gyroscopic instrument must rotate at a very high RPM. Giving them inertia, also called rigidity and the rotor maintains this alignment to a fixed point in space.

In the above Video, Rob Skiba does not understand that Aircrafts do NOT use magnetic devices when in flight. They use a Heading Indicator (a Gyro), or follow VOR, VOR/TAC, or TACAN, radials (radio wave signals).

NO, it is not about "Anti-gravity", but an interesting property. Gyroscopes will remain stable in space, just like the toy (top) of decades ago. Gyroscopic aircraft instruments are mounted in the dash. Until they are spinning up to speed, they dangle. Once up to speed, from the position they were started they will remain in the same position. The aircraft is the one that moves around the gyroscope, while the display remains fixed in space.

So, because of their concept, those instrument will defy 2 things:

  • The Attitude Indicator (or Artificial Horizon), will be unaffected by "Earth curvature".
  • The Heading Indicator, will be unaffected by the magnetism of the Earth, providing a direction based on the starting point setting.

Since the above portion is about Aviation, let me share with all of you one of my old flight method using "Empirical Trigonometry". Here it is assumed that we do not have a Trigonometry Table, nor a Calculator. We just have a Knee Board and a pencil. See drawing below.