The 1965 Evaluation of a Litton LN-12 Inertial Navigation System in Civil Air Transport Operations

Abstract

Abstract THE 1965 INERTIAL steering system evaluation was conducted by Pan American World Airways, the Bendix Corporation and Litton Systems, Inc. under the sponsorship of the Systems Research and Development Service of the Federal Aviation Agency. A Litton LN-12 inertial navigation system, together with a Bendix Corporation BANC 461 navigation course computer, was installed in a Pan American World Airways DC-8 aircraft. The DC-8 transport aircraft was operated on 55 scheduled transatlantic crossings plus 32 other short flights, both domestic and foreign. On these flights performance data was collected on inertial accuracy, steering behavior, position checks, waypoint misses, azimuth drift, doppler-inertial comparison, maintenance and reliability. Circular Error Probable was better than 1.5 nautical miles per hour. The LN-12 inertial system operated for 424 hours in the navigation mode and was used to steer the aircraft automatically through the autopilot for 224 hours. Prior to commencement of the data flights, two demonstration flights of dual LN-12 inertial systems were performed.