Electrical Control in Automatic Pilots

Engineers generally have been encouraged to attack new seemingly difficult and complicated problems by adapting the general principles utilized in their peacetime work to specific situations arising from the changed methods of modern warfare. This is well exemplified in the solution of aircraft-automatic-control problems. A summary of automatic-pilot principles and a description of some of the unique and less understood features of a specific modern design are discussed in this paper. It is of especial interest at the present time, because many manual operations of flight and engine control are being studied with a view to making them automatic, and, because as this trend becomes more pronounced, the interconnection of these automatic features will make the problems of each interrelated.