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Is anybody else amazed that this was able to do a completely automated flight in 1972? Compared to our reliance on modern computing, it's astonishing what peopl
by ccostes 11y ago
Is anybody else amazed that this was able to do a completely automated flight in 1972? Compared to our reliance on modern computing, it's astonishing what people were able to accomplish figuring everything out manually.
Granted, it blows my mind that we went to the moon in an era where a calculator weighed 20lbs and was the size of a briefcase, so maybe growing up with computers makes it hard to imagine life without them.
- engi_nerd 11y agoIt is an amazing feat, but given the calibre of the avionics expertise that Lockheed had then, I would expect nothing less.
- dingaling 11y agoMany of the TriStar autoland engineers came from the British company Smiths, which had developed operational autolanding systems for the Trident and Belfast. Here's a proud Smiths ad from 1965 https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1965/1965%20-%201834.html https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1965/1965%20-%2...
- ubernostrum 11y agoI think it's more a symptom of how out of touch people are with the age of many of the things we think of as "advanced" tech. The first aircraft autopilot system was developed in 1912; instrument landings have been around since the 1920s; and fully operational autoland predates the TriStar by almost a decade. Granted, early instrument landing systems weren't as precise or as convenient as their modern-day equivalents, but you can implement basic ILS with a few carefully-placed radio antennas (and in fact that's how it was done back in the day), and the modern systems work on exactly the same principles.