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Title (Dublin Core)
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The Ruggles orientator, a machine used to train aviators
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Article Title and/or Image Caption (Dublin Core)
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Flying without Wings Has Its Thrills. Riding a bucking orientator provides most of the sensations known to the aviator
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extracted text (Extract Text)
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IT was the first time that he had
been alone at the controls of the
airplane. John Harvey had the the-
ory of the thing down pat, but how
would theory and practice hitch up ?—
that was what he was asking himself
as the instructor saw that the safety
belt was properly secured and |
gave the order to go. A mo- |
ment later John Harvey was
concentrating so fiercely on the |
business in hand that all else
was forgotten.
“Steady, old man,” he said
to himself as he found that
he was gripping the control-
stick so tightly that his fingers
ached, and he pushed the stick |
gently forward. |
The machine dipped its nose |
gracefully. Harvey promptly
reversed the motion of the con- |
trol until he was again on an
even keel, and pushing with
his right foot on the rudder |
bar he swung around to the
right. Suddenly he remem- |
bered that he wasn't banking.
He pushed the “joy-stick” over
and the machine tipped sharp-
ly to one side—too sharply, and
Harvey wrenched at the stick to
avoid whirling completely over.
Then things began to hap- |
pen. Jolted forward by the
quick motion, Harvey uncon-
sciously pushed against the
control. Instantly, it seemed
to him, the machine went into
a nose dive. He tried to re-
verse, but too late. The ma-
chine was making an impossible
reverse loop and Harvey's
senses were whirling with it. |
But he didn’t crash. Something held
him suspended.
“If T can’t get out of this one way,
I can another,” he muttered, and
pushed the stick far to the left. At
once the car whirled over and Harvey's
ear canals—those keen centers of
equilibrium within the inner ear—
told him that he was right side up
once more.
Rough Going
Harvey was digesting his new sensa-
tions when the machine began to
rock and pitch violently. Tug as he
would at the controls, Harvey could
not keep on an even keel. An imp of
perversity was in the thing. If he
pushed the stick forward the machine
seemed determined to go somersault-
ing eternally through space, and when
he tried to bank, the blamed thing
seemed to interpret it as an order to
roll completely over. But little by
little Harvey got the knack of the
controls and presently he was master
of the situation.
Dangerous, not to say impossible
stunts for a beginner? Not at all.
John Harvey was as safe as you are
sitting in your chair reading this.
He had performed most of the evolu-
tions possible in a modern airplane—
and some impossible ones—without
ever losing touch with the solid earth.
The explanation is the Ruggles
orientator, a machine resembling some-
what a giant gyroscopic top, equipped
with a section of airplane fuselage, or
body, and controlled in its movements
exactly as ig an airplane. It is used
to train the student-flyer in orienta-
tion and motion-sensing, and to ac-
custom him to all the sensations of
aerial spins.
Such training means the difference
between life and death. Maj.-Gen.
George W. Squier said recently that
90 per cent of the flying casualties
during the war were caused not by
bullets, or badly built machines, but by
“the failure of the man.” In 1912 Wil-
liam G. Ruggles invented a machine
that would whirl the novice and ena-
ble the flight surgeons to test his reac-
tions. But the need was for a way to
teach aerial stunts and airplane con-
trol without danger; so Mr. Ruggles
improved his invention. He provided
two sets of large steel rings, large
enough to carry part of an airplane
body, swung one within vertical
and one within horizontal bear-
ings and driven by small motors
so that the rings revolve on
within the other. The longi-
tudinal axis of an airplane body,
suspended by bearings on the
inner ring, is also revolved by
the motors. Adding controls,
like those of an airplane, to
enable the student to regulate
the motion in any of three
directions, both forward and
reverse, the inventor had a
machine in which the beginner
could practice all the motions
of flying and try all the tricks
except leaving the ground and
landing. Mr. Ruggles also pro-
vided a dual control on the floor
by means of which an instructor
can control the movements of
the ear.
Fighting for Control
It was the manipulation of
the floor control by his instruc-
tor that caused John Harvey
to think that the thing was be-
witched when taking his first
lesson. If the instructor's ac-
tion is not met and promptly
countered by the pupil the
instructor can send him spin-
ning over and over, or around
“and around in a eircle in either
direction, or rolling sideways. But the
mastery is always in the hands of the
man in the car, provided he is skillful
enough.
When the instructor pushes his
control-stick forward the car in the
orientator begins to fall, or, more ac-
curately, to turn with its nose down
just as an airplane would start in a
nose dive. The motion can be over-
come by the student bringing his
control-stick slightly toward him. If
the student fails to meet the instruc-
tor's move the car will spin on its
lateral axis, performing a reverse loop
impossible in an airplane. The other
movements are started and controlled
by the instructor or pupil moving the
control-stick or the rudder bar exactly
as in a flying airplane.
Practice on the orientator develops
“ear-motion sense,” which will serve
a pilot when muscle sense and eyesight
fail to do so.
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Contributor (Dublin Core)
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Loren Palmer (writer)
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Division of Aeronautics, U. S. Army (photograph)
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Language (Dublin Core)
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eng
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Date Issued (Dublin Core)
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1919-07
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pages (Bibliographic Ontology)
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63
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Rights (Dublin Core)
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Public domain (Google digitized)
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Archived by (Dublin Core)
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Davide Donà
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Alberto Bordignon (Supervisor)
Popular Science Monthly, v. 95, n. 1, 1919
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