Aircraft Flight and Digital Instruments Systems
Until just a few years ago, aircraft had three distinct sets of instrument – aircraft flight instrument, aircraft engine instruments and aircraft navigation instruments. Moreover, each of these occupied enormous space in the cockpit instrument panel. Today, the distinctions are somewhat blurred. Image sitting in the cockpit trying to digest and make sense of three sets of information all at the same time and if that didn’t spike your blood pressure; the weather Gods usually did their magic to have a little fun at your expense. Born out of the necessity of reducing the numerous dials in the aircraft cockpit and also cutting down on the strain, modern day inventors (such as J.P. Instruments) of aircraft flight and digital instruments systems; used space-age technology to craft all-in-one digital aircraft flight and digital instruments systems. These Electronic Data Management Systems (EMS’s) are so integrated that they accept cross-platform data and make sense out of it in the same way the pilot(s) would. For example, the EDM accepts information from most modern day Global Positioning System (GPS) and figures out the aircraft location, it accepts information from aircraft Avionic Instruments and reads the fuel position, it accepts information from flight instruments and factors in the wind speed, direction, aircraft altitude, wind turbulence, aircraft speed and heading. It reads destination information the pilot fed into the GPS. It takes all this information to calculate if there is enough fuel to reach the destination and it does all this on a continuous basis in real time. Earlier, the pilots had to do all this. In fact, modern EDM’s such as the RPM Sensor Twin manufactured by California based J.P. Instruments, is so versatile that it can factor in adverse engine related data and accurately recompute flight viability. In fact, with EDM 960 on board, pilot flying vintage aircraft can remove most of the old analog engine dials and gauges, and free up valuable space in the cockpit instrument panel. The EDM 960 Twin requires just one DAU per engine so in a twin engine aircraft, it has only 2 wires leading back to the display unit. No more mess behind the cockpit instrument panel. No thermocouple wires in the wings! In fact, the EDM 960 twin acts as your full time on-board flight engineer. Pilots and especially maintenance engineers will heave a sigh of relief when they see just two cables behind the Aircraft Flight Instruments panel. Normally they would have had to navigate through a maze of wires and pilots have often complained of engine instruments malfunctioning because the maintenance crew in their hurry to complete the job, cross connected the wires. Not only in terms of accuracy of information they provide as well as the level of integration, the physical design of the EDM’s from the day-night auto adjusting brightness to the minimal cable requirement, adds a whole new dimension to aircraft flight safety. So if you are still flying an aircraft with analog dials, switch to the pleasure of stress-free flying – let the modern EDM’s do all the calculation and figuring out for you.a
