3 ms·
Since angle of attack is by definition the angle between a reference line of a body and the fluid it is moving through, I fail to see how you could measure it w
by bbojan 8y ago
Since angle of attack is by definition the angle between a reference line of a body and the fluid it is moving through, I fail to see how you could measure it without measuring the relative motion of the fluid.
Your suggestion would work under the assumption that there is never any vertical motion of air, but that's not the case in real life. E.g. in a downdraft your sensor would fail to detect a stall.
- flyinglizard 8y agoThat’s true, but it would still be good enough to cross check the aerodynamic AoA sensors upon a disagree between the two and select the one that’s more reliable.
- jedmeyers 8y ago> it would still be good enough to cross check What are you basing this assumption on?
- flyinglizard 8y agoPast professional experience with similar sensor systems. I also assume the AoA sensor failure was evident over time, through several phases of the flight and not momentarily. A sensor fusion algorithm would notice the divergence over time between the IMU and the two AoA sensors, then select the one AoA sensor that was closer. Even in the case of a momentary failure, it would take an extreme coincidence to have the readout pattern of the failed sensor seem closer to the IMU based AoA model than the working sensor. Keep in mind I’m only talking about cross checking the AoA sensors here; the flight control algorithms are only considering the aerodynamic sensors for AoA calculation as before, but they have an independent external reference to gauge the data quality of each sensor.