This device allows the controlled swaging of a round barrel. The adjustable roller located at 4 o’clock is gradually adjusted inward as the rifled barrel turns.
This report covers:
- Barrel choke
- Pellet skirt size
- What has not been addressed?
Wow! Just when I thought yesterday’s report was a dud it exploded! Apparently that kind of report is what you readers who comment on this blog want. I told reader Elmer Fudd I would answer his questions today, so here we go. First his questions.
“Some of the target pellet gun barrels have a slight choke near the muzzle. And these are designed to increase accuracy. But, we have been told that only match grade pellets should be used in these guns. The new Benjamin pellets are labeled as match grade. However, they are made from a harder alloy than most match grade pellets. Do you think the new Benjamin pellets would, in the long term, be detrimental (wear it out sooner) to a choked barrel target rifle? Or perhaps have a tendency to get stuck in the barrel?”
So I sat back and thought about what I would say and then reader RidgeRunner said it for me.
“The following is my own personal opinion and should be taken as such.
The term “match grade” is used rather loosely these days by the marketeers trying to sell their products. In the referred to case, it is used to emphasize the fact that these particular pellets are supposedly very consistent across the lot.
Almost all airguns these days have “match grade” triggers. Really? Pull the trigger on a true match rifle or pistol and we will then talk about it.
Marketeers have learned that “speed” sells. So does “match grade”. They use these terms to sell their products to the “unwashed”.
I, for one am looking forward to what “the master” has to say in tomorrow’s blog.”
“The Master” says he doesn’t come into your restaurant to watch you flip burgers, RidgeRunner. So stop doing his job!
Actually, RidgeRunner said almost exactly what I was going to say, and since he left out any colorful invectives, I used his words. He nailed it. The term “Match Grade” is a marketing term. The Benjamin Single Die domed pellet that I call the Benjamin Bullseye cannot be used in ten-meter matches because it is domed. Ten meter matches can only be shot with wadcutter pellets. That’s in all the rule books. So a domed pellet cannot be used in a ten-meter match.
But — are ten meter matches all the matches there are for airguns? Not at all. There are also field target matches, extreme benchrest matches, silhouette matches, gunslynger matches and so on. Put all the people who compete in these non-ten-meter matches together, though, and they don’t reach one-thousandth the number of shooters who compete in ten meter matches worldwide. So of course we tend to overlay ten meter matches on everything that carries the term “match.” But that is not the case. The marketeers are therefore not wrong to use the term “match” when promoting their domed pellets.
Some “match grade” pellets truly are match grade. Others are more like Vitameatavegamin. (Look up that word in connection to the television comedy series, I Love Lucy.
Barrel choke
Elmer also asked about airgun barrel chokes plus I promised reader ScottJ to address choked barrels.
Okay, barrel “chokes” are like the 100-miles-per-gallon carburetor that has supposedly existed since the 1960s. The oil companies, “… don’t want anyone to know about it so they bought the patent and buried it so they could keep selling lots of gas.” I wonder what they are doing with that “technology” today when half-ton Chevrolet trucks are being built with 4-cylinder engines that switch off two of the cylinders during cruising to conserve gas so they can meet their federally-mandated gas mileage requirements?
What I’m saying is — that carburetor never existed! Now, choked barrels do exist, but there are far fewer of them than people believe.
“But BB, I can push a pellet through the barrel of my Beeman R9 and the pellet meets resistance about 1.5 inches from the muzzle. Isn’t that a choke?”
Yes and no. Yes, there is a restriction and no it isn’t intentional. See the dovetail groves near the muzzle that hold the front sight? When they were pressed into the outside of the barrel some metal in the bore was also displaced. That’s the restriction you feel. It does NOTHING for accuracy.
The dovetail (arrow) pressed into the R9 barrel also caused a slight reduction of the bore. This is the “choke” some shooters feel when a pellet is pushed through the barrel.
Now I have to be honest — when it comes to rifling barrels I know very little. I do know that the barrelmaker, Harry Pope, did intentionally bore many of his barrels with a slight choke near the muzzle, and many other barrels had a long taper from breech to muzzle — a sort of long choke. The amount of size reduction was small — about five ten-thousandths of an inch. You can read more about choked barrels in my report titled, What about choked barrels?
But are all airgun barrels choked? No, they are not. Are some choked? Yes.
Here is what I have been told. Handler and Naterman, the pellet maker we know as H&N told Dr. Beeman in the 1990s that pellet manufacture had reached its zenith. Any advancement beyond what was possible then had to be done at the molecular level. And all a choked barrel was good for was “uniforming” the outside of pellets just before they left the muzzle. If the pellets were already uniform, the choke was of no benefit.
Lothar Walther sells target airgun barrels that have no choke. I know this because the barrels they sell are cut off in manufacture and shortened to fit certain airguns. So part or all of any choke that is there, intentional or otherwise, gets removed. I also know it because I once worked where I had access to the barrels they sold.
What I’m saying is that choked barrels are not as big a deal as many people believe. Yes they do exist and under some circumstances they do work, but in our world they are not as important as you may think.
Pellet skirt size
I promised reader Captain Bravo to address the size of pellet skirts. Here is his question.
“I have never heard that CO2 and PCP guns won’t push the skirts into the rifling. Thinking about that and your mention of the pelletgage, first I have never used a pelletgage. But all I hear (read actually) people talking about is head size. No mention of skirt size. I had assumed that was because the skirt would be formed to the rifling during firing. If it isn’t, is the head size and skirt size typically the same? Are they bigger and, since the skirts are weaker, they will just “shrink” to fit the rifling? Would it even make a difference if the pressure was sufficient to form the skirt to the rifling?”
Again, Captain Bravo, I’m telling only what I know about pellet skirts. Pellet skirts tend to be larger than pellet heads. You assume correctly that the skirts are formed to the inside of the rifle barrels once the pellets enter the breech. They seal the compressed air or gas behind the pellet to give it its push. Read my report titled, Are vintage Sheridan pellets better than modern pellets? to get a better idea of what pellet skirts do.
Since the lead skirts have to squash down to fit the inside of the barrel they can be larger than the pellet heads and still not present a problem. However — should we measure the size of pellet skirts? Probably not because once the pellet is inside the barrel its skirt should measure the same as the inside barrel size. The heads do the same thing, but they are smaller and they more closely conform to the barrel size.
Your last question is — “Would it even make a difference if the pressure was sufficient to form the skirt to the rifling?”
Here is the deal with that. While the skirt does squash down to fit the inside of the bore just by pushing it in, the amount of the skirt that squashes is small — a thin ring at the tail of the pellet. If the pellet obturates inside the bore, as can happen when some spring guns shoot, then a much larger amount of the pellet skirt is pressed against the bore. That’s the difference. What difference does that make in terms of accuracy? I have no clue, though I think less contact would be better.
What has not been addressed?
This is a note to myself for when I want to write Part 2. I have not addressed:
Pellet hardness
Pellet rifle barrel wear
Tendency for chokes to stick pellets in the bore.
B.B.
I know 10M shooting is popular but 99.90%?????
-Y
Yes Yogi, when you include all of the levels. the backyard, school, 4H, club, state, regional national, Olympic and world wide levels.
All use .177 wadcutters, and 10meter as the standard for competition.
Some countries do not allow their populace access to guns, so strictly controlled Airgun events are all they can have.
They see cool guns being fired on tv, and in movies, but can’t have them, or even non firing replicas.
Imagine a country like that with 10 million people, how many of them do you think would participate in the shooting sport if it was the only game in the country that let them close to anything that even resembled a gun.
BB has mentioned in the past about being at a function where numbers were presented abut how many kids were in school or club sponsored competition.
Ian.
Ian,
In 1998 the NRA told everyone at the SHOT Show that close to one million kids participated in 10 meter junior competition nationwide. There were close to 75,000 clubs that supported them.
BB
Ypgi,
It’s probably WAY more than that. Countries like China and Russia have tens of thousands of marksmen shooting both rifle and pistol. The middle eastern countries as well. And the other airgun sports are next to unknown in those countries.
In the US there are 75,000 CLUBS that shoot 10 meter Junior air rifle. I used to teach in one and we had 20-25 junior marksmen (and women). And we also had a field target club where 13 shooters was a big deal. We were the only field target club in the state, but there were at least 20 other 10-meter rifle clubs.
The other airgun sports are less than a drop in the bucket in comparison.
BB
BB,
I recently read an article that talked about a fully tapered bore in an Anschütz .22 rimfire barrel and the explanation for it. It went something like this: “When a bullet is pushed down a barrel, it is very hard to maintain the seal of the gases behind it because it is nigh on to impossible to have uniform parallel walls of the barrel. When there is a constriction followed by a slightly larger section or a loose spot, the gases will flow around the bullet and introduce instability to said projectile. With a constantly tapered bore, the bullet is being constantly reduced in size, thereby being uniformly propelled down the bore because of a more consistent and uniform seal.”
It made sense to me (but I have been quite impressed with Anschütz rimfire match rifles.)
If you find my explanation confusing, it is entirely my fault as I cannot find where I read the article.
(It seems that as I get older, my forgetter works better and better.)
Enjoy the day.
Bill
Concerning the “What has not been addressed” section.
Today it looks like we got the bread and the spread.
The next part looks like we’re going to get the meat of the sandwich.
Great report!
Ian..
For those who don’t know the Vitameatavegamin from I Love Lucy (including myself)
https://youtu.be/KY3eOtJwOhE?si=FeK-TGXuJNuAXDRh
Siraniko
We use vitameatavegamin, the word, not the bottle content, around RRHFWA all the time. We are old geezers and like the old shows.
FM just recently traveled a little further on Geezerdom Road. No matter, speaking of the Ricardos, FM and Mrs. met at work – disclaimer: we were not flogging Vitameatavegaman on TV – but nevertheless for some reason, after we paired up coworkers began referring to us as “Ricky and Lucy.”
Good read, as usual; looking forward to more and to discussion about barrel wear. Another takeaway for FM throughout this series has been – if you believe lead pellets work best on your guns, stock up while that is possible. Don’t overdo the lead, though.
https://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/70200
The past couple reports have been very interesting, and the questions too. Thanks, BB!
There was some discussion about pellet skirts flaring out to press into the bore, pellets obturating and such, and the softness of certain pellets compared with other alloyed lead pellets and if that make them more accurate. Well, I’ve been playing around with tin or tin alloy unleaded pellets that are very hard, and have some observations that may be of interest.
1. One is that the skirts of these hard pellets also can press into the bore, and I see it more with spring-piston guns. In fact there are some unleaded pellets with very thin skirts (Winchester MVP, RWS Hyper-max), that balloon out fairly robustly. So maybe the skirt thickness (or thinness) is as relevant to flaring out as the hardness of the metal?
2. I’ve also been casting pellets using NOE molds, and they have different length base pins to give deep, medium or shallow hollows in the skirt, but otherwise the pellets are the same: same head size and general shape. The deep skirt castings clearly flare out more and press more rifling than the medium or shallow, but interestingly tend not to be as accurate as the mediums in most of my guns. So again, hard metal skirts can flare, but maybe that isn’t directly relevant for accuracy?
3. The most accurate combination of pellet and gun in my hands, is the most accurate gun in general and it does not flare the skirts at all. My Condor is stoppered down under 12 ft#, puff, and I only see light rifling marks on shot pellets; they otherwise look unshot. So again, maybe flaring the skirt isn’t neccessary for accuracy?
The “null hypothesis” might be that something else about the pellet is what makes it accurate, not the softness of the alloy. A good test might be to cast pellets from one mold but use different alloys, from soft to hard, and then see which is the most accurate. This sounds like the kind of thing that might have been done before.
Mike
Mike,
Yes, flaring from the air blast is not necessary to accuracy, but a skirt that seals the breech is. Ten-meter rifles and pistols don’t flare their pellets’ skirts, yet they are extremely accurate.
BB
Thank you vewy much BB. This is a great and thorough report as usual! When counting the 10-meter shooting numbers, we might want to consider all the people who have set up a 10-meter range in their basements/backyards, etc. I know this might not be considered competition, so it doesn’t directly apply to your statement regarding the competitive numbers. But many of us might want to try our hands at, and use some of the guns that are made for 10-meter competition. Looking forward to the next part in this series!
Elmer,
I have a Baikal 46M, my Izzy. I have a Luznik Predom. Until I did a little trade with BB, I had an AirForce Edge. I used to own two FWB 300’s and a FWB 601, all three of which live elsewhere now. I also have a Lincoln Jeffries model 1906 BSA, which is known as the granddaddy of all the competition air rifles, at least according to some.
I have never, ever officially competed. I never will. I do enjoy accuracy though. There are indeed far more folks that enjoy shooting 10-meter airguns than compete.
BB-
A very interesting couple of days discussing internal ballistics. I am reminded of a an old saying when the discussion veers to increasingly esoteric factors of the projectiles’ path through the barrel bore. While the possibilities raised about what could be tried in the search for ‘The One’ are all very interesting, the old saying seems to hold true and truer. That saying-
Perfect is the enemy of ‘good enough’
Once the projectile leaves the muzzle, if the unit pressing the trigger hasn’t ensured proper stance, sight alignment, sight picture, breathing control, trigger press and on and on and on……..
Point being, for 90% of the shots of 90% of the shooters in any non- Olympic program, fairly average pellets are good enough for the training goals.
Paco,
I must be in the 10% of the shooters. When I ordered pellets from Neal Stepp for my FWB 601, he informed me that there were much cheaper pellets that I could use for plinking. I told him that I was very serious about my plinking.
I like to shoot the absolute best in my Izzy and my Predom. That way I know that if I miss, it is me.
Me too. While my target shooting is only informal, fun for me is getting the smallest possible 10 shot groups at 25 yards with whatever airgun I’m shooting. Popular priced pellets increase the group sizes without exception. If there is gusty wind, the target is at 10 meters.
Deck
Deck,
What’s a meter? Is that not the little round thing found on many PCP airguns?
RR
It’s that thingy thing attached to my house’s consumption of energy comfort.
Would like a photo of your range area in your report 5/16
Deck
Deck,
Yeah, I have one of those also.
As far as a range photo, you will have to wait for part nine of my Diana 34. I will most definitely include one just for you.
RR-
Your time and your dime. I’ve had lots of shooters try to argue that ‘better’ ammo, gun, scope, whatever will help prove that the miss is on them, and that will help them improve. Fact is, watching them, I can see the things they are doing wrong. Until they start listening and lose the ability to miss with their current set up, throwing money away rarely fixes them.
We all like to try to buy skill. It can be fun.
Yeah but it’s good for the economy…. 🙂
pacoinohio,
I think i hear a corus of angels singing on high!
Must just be the wind in the evergreens….
shootski
Shootski-
Funny you mentioned the wind in the evergreens. I had just been reminiscing about some long ago times spent in Northern climes. Totally different sounds from my native hardwood forests here. Of course I was different then, too.
And about those angels. Would they be the ones residing on the head of a pin?
pacoinohio,
Ever been in the woods with folks that don’t hear the wind in the trees until their attention is called to it? Or the popping of the Sugar maple in the late Winter Sun.
Yup, not many shooters found on pin heads…many however are found on Pins and Needles right before (re)qualifications!
shootski
RR,
That sounds more like target practice than plinking.
Bob M,
Well yeah, maybe. I tend to be a little bit serious with my shooting. When I was in my teens, I used to shoot groundhogs in the head at over five hundred yards. I do tend to take my shooting most seriously.
RR,
At 500 yards I’d be lucky to see a human let alone a groundhog’s head. Nice work there.
I remember spotting for my dad one day. I do not know how far off the groundhog was, but the .25-06 he was shooting was dropping about six feet. After a few shots and my guidance, he hit that groundhog. It was so far that the hollow point he was using did not expand as it went through the groundhog.
I agree 100 percent with this. My first pellet gun was an off the shelf at Wally World Crosman 760. I didn’t think that it was very accurate, so I got something better. However, after my skills improved, and I shot the 760 using better techniques, I found out that the 760 was way more accurate than I first thought. Thanks to this blog and all the information available here I have come a long way in my shooting abilities.
EF,
Your words are my own with my first break-barrel rifle — “using better techniques.”
At first I couldn’t hit the proverbial broadside of a barn with it, now I can hit the barn every time! Seriously, I went from 8″ groups (!) to fifty-cent groups at 30 yards. Now I’m working on getting a consistent quarter-sized group and I’ll be content with that.
MiTurn
BB,
Thanks for this blurb. I am really looking forward to Part Two.
Another very informative article. While I don’t always comment on them, I do read them.
This one got me thinking, not about chokes but about rifling. I know that you, BB, have written about this topic in the past, but have you ever done side-by-side shooting between identical guns where one is rifled and the other is not? The results would be interesting and conclusive. At least I think so on the latter.
Thanks for another great post.
MiTurn
MiTurn,
Not to be picky, MiTurn, but if one is rifled and the other isn’t they are hardly identical. That is a test I don’t know how to do.
The closest I have come to that is when I tested a Diana model 25 smoothbore’
https://www.pyramydair.com/blog/2013/03/diana-25-smoothbore-pellet-gun-part-5/
… against a Diana model 25 that was rifled.
https://www.pyramydair.com/blog/2012/12/diana-25-air-rifle-part-4/
The smoothbore was a .177 and the rifle a .22 but this is as close as I have come — I think!
BB
BB,
I understand what you’re saying, but perhaps I didn’t state my question correctly. Only hypothetically speaking, if I had two Model X air rifles, identical in all respects except for their barrels, with one rifled and one not rifled but the same length, how much variance would there be at 20 yards?
But I suspect that such barrel options in rifles don’t exist.
🙂
MiTurn
MiTurn,
If they were both air RIFLES then they would both be riflED. Read the reports I linked you to.
BB
My bad!!
I get it. Sorry for the dumb question.
🙂
MiTurn
MiTurn,
BB doesn’t do picky but shootski is tactless and all about PICKY!
You asked him: “…side-by-side shooting between identical guns where one is rifled and the other is not?”
yup, that could be done and all it would get you is a comparison between those two particular barrels. In order to find the difference between rifled barrels and smoothbores you would need to do a statistically significant number of comparisons. Even then you would still only have a comparison of the two types from one manufacturer. You would also need to get multiple rifled barrels from the same manufacturer done in the various rifling styles, rates, and methods available. And still we would only have scratched the surface of comparative testing possibilities.
Do you see where PICKY shootski is heading with this testing conundrum?
In my opinion it would still come down to you being LUCKY with the barrel (of what ever type or make) that has decided to come stay with you for a time.
FRUSTRATING isn’t it!
But wait…PICKY shootski hasn’t even begun to throw out the variables in just barrel selection let alone what that barrel is connected too that also plays havoc with the choices.
Of course, IF you get a Tack Driver Barrel, consider yourself blessed and shoot only with a great big smile on your face.
shootski
To further emphasize shootski’s point, I recall reading about youth shooting coaches who would buy several Daisy 499 replacement barrels and then only use the ones that proved to be the most accurate. Am I remembering that correctly, B.B.?
So there is a fair amount of variability in barrel making, too.
From my personal experience, I started what I call my airgun rennaisance with an Umarex Embark breakbarrel. I shot that thing until I started noticing the trigger breaking in, and groups tightening with certain pellets. Eventually I found the best pellets, but some would require me to adjust the peep sight to the limits of the windage adjustment. So many factors go into accuracy!
Roamin,
You remembered all but the model. It was the 299 coaches did that with. That was what prompted Daisy to make the 499 that has a perfect barrel every time.
BB
BB,
thanks for addressing my questions. The rest of the report opens up all other kinds of questions, which are probably addressed in other reports, but other responsibilities are calling for today.
CB
This was a really outstanding topic and blog this morning. Not only was it interesting and educational, but I also thoroughly enjoyed the comments and responses. While merely a blinker, it was truly educational.
BB
I have a pellet gage and use it to check any pellets I plan to use for accuracy in a given rifle. You mentioned that the tails are always larger than the head size,, but when I use my gage, I push the pellet all the way through, thus negating that.
Should I be using my gage differently? In my mind, I looked at my procedure as assuring uniformity,, but is it actually detracting from the best design characteristics of the pellets?
Seems I can never be sure of what I don’t know. There always seems to be more.
Ed
Ed,
I would not push the pellets through the gage. That wider tail on the skirt is important for sealing the bore. But this does suggest an experiment. Shoot groups of ten pellet that have been pushed through the gage against ten pellets that have not and see if you can detect a difference. I would say you should do that at least at 20 yards and the farther the better.
BB
As my gage is .177 because that is what I used for my matches and is also the caliber of my most accurate rifle, I likely wouldn’t be able to spot much difference at 10 meters. The Challenger 2009 loses a couple steps at 25 meters.
I may give it a shot, anyway. Just have to get a 25 meter range set up. I have a plan but I’m having some construction done either this week or next that will interfere.
Ed
Let me throw my wrench in.
The FX Smooth Twist Barrel. I thought the purpose of rifling was to induce spin in the pellet, not really seal it.
Thin skirts engage the rifling easier and perhaps deeper, but are they that way simply because they are light weight pellets, or really designed to seal air? How much air can possibly be lost around a pellet skirt once it has engaged the rifling without actually reaching the grooves, given the time it takes to go through the barrel? Is it even a measurable amount?
Rifling distorts the pellet with groves and who knows what turbulence is created in flight. Smooth twist, not so much.
My concern is just how the pellet engages the rifling in the first place. Are lands sharp and gouging, creating lead dust, or tapered and smoothly distorting.
I would assume a low powered airgun would benefit from rifling that gouges the pellet into it. Both sealing it and inducing spin better. I would also assume wad cutters work well in target pistols not only because they cut cleaner holes but there is less metal contacting and resisting the rifling simply by design.
Heck, heavy thick pellets might work well with high powered air rifles if they are gouged into the rifling also being too thick to expand. Then there are long thin pellets that have weight and expand as well.
Thats why I would like manufactures to inform us which ‘type’ of pellet they had in mind when they designed it.
Just more to consider when matching pellet and airgun.
Bob M,
This might be just the thing you need to read to start on the path to a large part of what you ask: https://quackenbushairguns.com/Airgun_barrels.htm
shootski
Bob M,
I will try to answer this part of your post/reply directly
“How much air can possibly be lost around a pellet skirt once it has engaged the rifling without actually reaching the grooves, given the time it takes to go through the barrel? Is it even a measurable amount?”
The biggest problem with leakage is it is another variable and also a variable from shot to shot as well.
It also isn’t just a reduction of the Work(ing) Force but since it moves to in front of the projectile in the bore it becomes a part of the now increasing Dead Mass that the Work Force needs to accelerate (push) out of the bore.
If the projectile seals with no blowby that variable(s) is eliminated.
How sharp the edges of the Lands are is a barrel designers nightmare decision. If it doesn’t spin the projectile without smear it is back to adding a number of variables: a few of which are change in Mass, change in Rate-of-Spin, loss of axial balance, and lots more.
The key to precision is duplication of factors as much as possible from shot to shot and minimization of induced variables.
shootski
Shootski,
Thanks, it’s a wonder we ever hit anything. Think I’ll start shooting at barns, from the inside! Just to keep me happy.
Bob M,
Yup.
My wife and i were just talking about Boeing’s current problems and she asked about what i thought. I told her that Boeing certainly had a culture problem. That the airline bought incomplete systems (Boeing shouldn’t have offered that option) and the pilot training was weak at best as well as the writing/reading of the Gripe Sheets from previous flights. Also not knowing the location of the specific circuit breaker to pull (blindfolded) to shut down the autopilot was criminal!
But Hunter, Biden INC. is heavily invested in some other airplane manufacturer(s) no doubt…
shootski
Shootski,
Must be because I’m in my recliner that the Boeing stuff went right over my head. Did something happen? Been out shopping and stuff all day.
Bob M,
Just saw this. Biden’s DOJ is continuing to rake Boeing Management over the coals about the two 737 Max that crashed after the AOA system sent spurious inputs into the Autopilot System; probably compounded by pilot induced oscillations. None of the other airlines apparently went with the basic AOA system which the best i can tell allowed the Autopilot to not dampen spurious inputs.
This is at least two years of DOJ effort…
shootski
Shootski, (Mostly aircraft talk)
Aircraft today are extremely complicated. On an old DC-8 they had electrical relays with wires attached that you could check for electrical power crossing over or actuating the relay. Now relays are little sealed, digital, cubes pressed into a printed circuit board.
Everything shares information with everything else through computers, AKA (Also Known As, for some readers) Black Boxes that troubleshoot themselves through on board testing.
Like cars today, you can’t troubleshoot anything without computer help unless you have years of experience and can recall past problems and may only require some verification. It’s all too complicated.
It leads to increased chances of problems, in my opinion. In spite of the reliability of modern electronics.
We had an in-op Pitot Tube Heat (Those little stainless-steel tubes that stick out of the aircraft near the front section that measure air speed. It’s heated so as not to frost over and clog)
Wound up the Tac-Generator (RPM indicator generator) on one of the engines wasn’t supplying info to a computer. Was it bad? No.
The heat only worked in the cold air and it verified that, partly, by checking the engine speed ‘in flight’. HOWEVER, the Tac Generator worked fine on its own RPM gage. Turned out to be a bad printed circuit card in the electronics bay that shared the information with the Pitot Heat System for it to work.
I think they are walking a fine line to decrease weight and save costs by integrating systems and information. But it results in computers flying, or at least managing, the aircraft for the most part.
Look at all those F-14’s that crashed because bad flight computers (CADC) took over and reversed the pilots control input.
Yes, computers actually help prevent ‘Pilot over correcting’. Especially on glide slope approach. Imagine that could be a problem in some circumstance.
Talented hands-on troubleshooters are fading into the past… Ha, same with pilots! Unmanned flying computers and that thought scares the hell out of passengers. The solution … AI pilots that look real, not the ones that have blowup tubes.
Bob M,
You mean this kind of automatic pilot? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQbj9uvYL8I
Siraniko
Siraniko,
Exactly. Although I believe that was the early model. Japan has come out with some improved multipurpose versions. Very realistic and assuring to the passengers.