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Starfighter's Avionics: Bendix Air Data Computer


Geoman

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Bendix Air Data Computer - Part 1: First Look Inside (YouTube)

Bendix Air Data Computer - Part 2: Master Ken Explains (YouTube)

Reverse-engineering an electromechanical Central Air Data Computer (Ken Shirriff's blog)

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Reverse-engineering an electromechanical Central Air Data Computer

Determining the airspeed and altitude of a fighter plane is harder than you'd expect. At slower speeds, pressure measurements can give the altitude, air speed, and other "air data". But as planes approach the speed of sound, complicated equations are needed to accurately compute these values. The Bendix Central Air Data Computer (CADC) solved this problem for military planes such as the F-101 and the F-111 fighters, and the B-58 bomber.1 This electromechanical marvel was crammed full of 1955 technology: gears, cams, synchros, and magnetic amplifiers. In this blog post I look inside the CADC, describe the calculations it performed, and explain how it performed these calculations mechanically. [...]

I haven't found a definitive list of which planes used this CADC. Based on various sources, I believe it was used in the F-86, F-101, F-104, F-105, F-106, and F-111, and the B-58 bomber.

 

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23 hours ago, Geoman said:

I haven't found a definitive list of which planes used this CADC. Based on various sources, I believe it was used in the F-86, F-101, F-104, F-105, F-106, and F-111, and the B-58 bomber.

How is this related to the Phantom?

 

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9 hours ago, sparrow88 said:

How is this related to the Phantom?

 

Possibly forgot what forums it was it?

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Jeez can we cut some slack here? Its an interesting nugget of information on related aircraft, from the right country in the right time period.

Its even directly known to have been in other century series fighters - so its at least tangentially related, which is cool on a slow news day for F4 development and we haven't even ruled out that its not the right CADC.

In other news - cool find, enjoyed the read.

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Many years ago, the 104 was going to be the first third party module.  There was a subforum for it.  But for now, I'm glad it was posted as it's quite interesting to see the evolution of avionics that was the state of the art during the development of the Phantom.  It gives a bit of context for just how revolutionary the Phantom really was.

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