I’ve recently learned that the Norden Gunsight was more than just a ballistics prediction machine and it actually helped control the bomber it was attached to.
This is news to me, as I thought autopilot systems only became a thing following the space program and the apollo flight computer being transferred to jet fighters as experimental fly-by-wire systems.
In: Engineering
The Norden Mark III used a PDI (pilot direction indicator) to tell the pilot which direction to fly, so the bombardier could move the path left or right. Constant altitude was a separate indicator.
With the Mark XV, the PDI was replaced with a direct input, using the trim cable to the rudder.
In no modern sense was this an autopilot. There was still a human turning knobs to steer the plane. But, he wasn’t in the cockpit.
Autopilots have existed practically since the dawn of aviation. Sperry developed one back in 1912, a simple attitude/heading hold, connected to the rudder and elevators by hydraulics. They worked by taking analog signals from an instrument and comparing it to a desired reference, either set by the pilot or a predetermined neutral point, and using that to move a control surface by its usual mechanical linkages. They weren’t really used extensively until WWII, such as on the B17 or in the V-1 cruise missile, and they are rudimentary and really only good for maintaining course, but they were there.
Apollo was (one of?) the first *all-digital* autopilot signal processing through a computer.
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