Re: AFCA cheap imitation Summary for 09-May-08

On Tue, 13 May 2008 09:18:29 -0400, Neal Eckhardt
<neckhardt@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

> On Mon, 12 May 2008 22:10:38 -0700, "Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary
> Shafer)" <reunite.gondwana@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> 
> >It wasn't as dangerous as it might sound.  We had three computers that
> >voted two out of three, so pulling the circuit breaker on one computer
> >that wasn't working anyway didn't compromise anything.  It was only
> >when one of the two remaining computers got odd that we really
> >worried.
> 
> This begs the question from us computer types, "What happens when
> you're down to two computers, and the recommendations are different?".

Analog backup system.  The USAF F-4 SFCS had kept a mechanical
back-up, but NASA went completely FBW.  It helped that the basic F-8
had a very simple flight control system to begin with.

Incidentally, one of the honchos at General Dynamics told the engineer
who had driven the F-8 DFBW program from inception to retirement that
seeing NASA successfully go without a mechanical back-up in the F-8
had encouraged GD to not have one in the F-16.  That saved them a lot
of money and effort.

That's not what "begging the question means", by the way.  Try saying
"This leads to the question...." instead, since that's a more accurate
description.

Mary "Or not; I knew what you meant"
-- 
Mary Shafer   Retired aerospace research engineer
We didn't just do weird stuff at Dryden, we wrote re****ts about it.
reunite.gondwana@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 or miliff@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 my blog at http://thedigitalknitter.blogspot.com/