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Re: REFLECTOR: AOA perspective



> What about you Velocity fliers (if any of you have read this far)?  =
> Would you like to have one of these on your airplane?  I'd like your =
> feedback, because I'm giving serious thought to making this =
> installation.
> 

Yup, read that far.
Well, yes, I would like an AOA meter in my bird.  I don't know if it's
usefulness will be warranted.  I'm doing it "because I can", and this
airplane is really experimental in many ways.

Yes, I have an AOA meter installed.  I went to the NASA DFRC server
and latched on to their RT-FADS papers.  RT-FADS stands for
Real Time - Flush Air Data System.  They tested theirs on an F-18
at speeds in excess of mach one.  They use the system on their heavy
high speed bombers and the Space Shuttle.

I installed mine on the nose of the airplane.  I have seven ports
arranged vertically.  One in what I figure to be the leading edge
(and thus the stagnation point) of the nose, and then three more above
and three more below it.  I am going to use those cool, really 
sensitive micromachined strain gauge sensors that you can get on
an IC.  They cost about $10 each.  I'll connect these to an
analog multiplexer, which then feeds into a cheap ($100) embedded
microcontroller from Z-World.  It will talk on my RS-485 multi drop
network that is connected to the main computer.

Calibrating this puppy will be the tricky part.  I figure I will require
a traditional van AOA type meter to collect reference data.  I'll
wash all the data through a neural network simulator and generate
a mathematical model that will live on the Zworld controller.
You can't just plug in a single model and expect to get accurate AOA.
The pressure distribution is not constant over a range of speeds.  In
other words, you have to do a multi variable regression analysis
to get it to work.  However, I've seen the math.  It's not for the
faint at heart.  A neural network will do the same thing, and better
yet, it is deterministic, and will do interpolation naturally.

Yes, I like this sort of thing.  Not sure if it's going to be useful,
but ain't it cool?

-- 
Brian Michalk  <http://www.awpi.com/michalk>
Life is what you make of it ... never wish you had done something.
Aviator, experimental aircraft builder, motorcyclist, SCUBA diver
musician, home-brewer, entrepenuer and SINGLE!