We recently received an attitude indicator for the F-4 fighter plane, an instrument that uses a rotating ball to show the aircraft's orientation and direction. In a normal aircraft, the artificial horizon shows the orientation in two axes (pitch and roll), but the F-4 indicator uses a rotating ball to show the orientation in three axes, adding azimuth (yaw).1 It wasn't obvious to me how the ball could rotate in three axes: how could it turn in every direction and still remain attached to the instrument?

We disassembled the indicator, reverse-engineered its 1960s-era circuitry, fixed some problems,2 and got it spinning. The video clip below shows the indicator rotating around three axes. In this blog post, I discuss the mechanical and electrical construction of this indicator. (The quick explanation is that the ball is really two hollow half-shells attached to the internal mechanism at the "poles"; the shells rotate while the "equator" remains stationary.)

The F-4 aircraft

The indicator was used in the F-4 Phantom II3 so the pilot could keep track of the aircraft's orientation during high-speed maneuvers. The F-4 was a supersonic fighter manufactured from 1958 to 1981. Over 5000 were produced, making it the most-produced American supersonic aircraft ever. It was the main US fighter jet in the Vietnam War, operating from aircraft carriers. The F-4 was still used in the 1990s during the Gulf War, suppressing air defenses in the "Wild Weasel" role. The F-4 was capable of carrying nuclear bombs.4

The F-4 was a two-seat aircraft, with the radar intercept officer controlling radar and weapons from a seat behind the pilot. Both cockpits had a panel crammed with instruments, with additional instruments and controls on the sides. As shown below, the pilot's panel had the three-axis attitude indicator in the central position, just below the reddish radar scope, reflecting its importance.5 (The rear cockpit had a simpler two-axis attitude indicator.)

The attitude indicator mechanism

The ball inside the indicator shows the aircraft's position in three axes. The roll axis indicates the aircraft's angle if it rolls side-to-side along its axis of flight. The pitch axis indicates the aircraft's angle if it pitches up or down. Finally, the azimuth axis indicates the compass direction that the aircraft is heading, changed by the aircraft's turning left or right (yaw). The indicator also has moving needles and status flags, but in this post I'm focusing on the rotating ball.6

The indicator uses three motors to move the ball. The roll motor (below) is attached to the frame of the indicator, while the pitch and azimuth motors are inside the ball. The ball is held in place by the roll gimbal, which is attached to the ball mechanism at the top and bottom pivot points. The roll motor turns the roll gimbal and thus the ball, providing a clockwise/counterclockwise movement. The roll control transformer provides position feedback. Note the numerous wires on the roll gimbal, connected to the mechanism inside the ball.

The diagram below shows the mechanism inside the ball, after removing the hemispherical shells of the ball. When the roll gimbal is rotated, this mechanism rotates with it. The pitch motor causes the entire mechanism to rotate around the pitch axis (horizontal here), which is attached along the "equator". The azimuth motor and control transformer are behind the pitch components, not visible in this photo. The azimuth motor turns the vertical shaft. The two hollow hemispheres of the ball attach to the top and bottom of the shaft. Thus, the azimuth motor rotates the ball shells around the azimuth axis, while the mechanism itself remains stationary.

Why doesn't the wiring get tangled up as the ball rotates? The solution is two sets of slip rings to implement the electrical connections. The photo below shows the first slip ring assembly, which handles rotation around the roll axis. These slip rings connect the stationary part of the instrument to the rotating roll gimbal. The black base and the vertical wires are attached to the instrument, while the striped shaft in the middle rotates with the ball assembly housing. Inside the shaft, wires go from the circular metal contacts to the roll gimbal.

Inside the ball, a second set of slip rings provides the electrical connection between the wiring on the roll gimbal and the ball mechanism. The photo below shows the connections to these slip rings, handling rotation around the pitch axis (horizontal in this photo). (The slip rings themselves are inside and are not visible.) The shaft sticking out of the assembly rotates around the azimuth (yaw) axis. The ball hemisphere is attached to the metal disk. The azimuth axis does not require slip rings since only the ball shells rotates; the electronics remain stationary.

The servo loop

In this section, I'll explain how the motors are controlled by servo loops. The attitude indicator is driven by an external gyroscope, receiving electrical signals indicating the roll, pitch, and azimuth positions. As was common in 1960s avionics, the signals are transmitted from synchros, which use three wires to indicate an angle. The motors inside the attitude indicator rotate until the indicator's angles for the three axes match the input angles.

Each motor is controlled by a servo loop, shown below. The goal is to rotate the output shaft to an angle that exactly matches the input angle, specified by the three synchro wires. The key is a device called a control transformer, which takes the three-wire input angle and a physical shaft rotation, and generates an error signal indicating the difference between the desired angle and the physical angle. The amplifier drives the motor in the appropriate direction until the error signal drops to zero. To improve the dynamic response of the servo loop, the tachometer signal is used as a negative feedback voltage. This ensures that the motor slows as the system gets closer to the right position, so the motor doesn't overshoot the position and oscillate. (This is sort of like a PID controller.)

In more detail, the external gyroscope unit contains synchro transmitters, small devices that convert the angular position of a shaft into AC signals on three wires. The photo below shows a typical synchro, with the input shaft on the top and five wires at the bottom: two for power and three for the output.

Internally, the synchro has a rotating winding called the rotor that is driven with 400 Hz AC. Three fixed stator windings provide the three AC output signals. As the shaft rotates, the phase and voltage of the output signals changes, indicating the angle. (Synchros may seem bizarre, but they were extensively used in the 1950s and 1960s to transmit angular information in ships and aircraft.)

The attitude indicator uses control transformers to process these input signals. A control transformer is similar to a synchro in appearance and construction, but it is wired differently. The three stator windings receive the inputs and the rotor winding provides the error output. If the rotor angle of the synchro transmitter and control transformer are the same, the signals cancel out and there is no error output. But as the difference between the two shaft angles increases, the rotor winding produces an error signal. The phase of the error signal indicates the direction of error.

The next component is the motor/tachometer, a special motor that was often used in avionics servo loops. This motor is more complicated than a regular electric motor. The motor is powered by 115 volts AC, 400-Hertz, but this isn't sufficient to get the motor spinning. The motor also has two low-voltage AC control windings. Energizing a control winding will cause the motor to spin in one direction or the other.

The motor/tachometer unit also contains a tachometer to measure its rotational speed, for use in a feedback loop. The tachometer is driven by another 115-volt AC winding and generates a low-voltage AC signal proportional to the rotational speed of the motor.

The photo above shows a motor/tachometer with the rotor removed. The unit has many wires because of its multiple windings. The rotor has two drums. The drum on the left, with the spiral stripes, is for the motor. This drum is a "squirrel-cage rotor", which spins due to induced currents. (There are no electrical connections to the rotor; the drums interact with the windings through magnetic fields.) The drum on the right is the tachometer rotor; it induces a signal in the output winding proportional to the speed due to eddy currents. The tachometer signal is at 400 Hz like the driving signal, either in phase or 180º out of phase, depending on the direction of rotation. For more information on how a motor/generator works, see my teardown.

The amplifier

The motors are powered by an amplifier assembly that contains three separate error amplifiers, one for each axis. I had to reverse engineer the amplifier assembly in order to get the indicator working. The assembly mounts on the back of the attitude indicator and connects to one of the indicator's round connectors. Note the cutout in the lower left of the amplifier assembly to provide access to the second connector on the back of the indicator. The aircraft connects to the indicator through the second connector and the indicator passes the input signals to the amplifier through the connector shown above.

The amplifier assembly contains three amplifier boards (for roll, pitch, and azimuth), a DC power supply board, an AC transformer, and a trim potentiometer.7 The photo below shows the amplifier assembly mounted on the back of the instrument. At the left, the AC transformer produces the motor control voltage and powers the power supply board, mounted vertically on the right. The assembly has three identical amplifier boards; the middle board has been unmounted to show the components. The amplifier connects to the instrument through a round connector below the transformer. The round connector at the upper left is on the instrument case (not the amplifier) and provides the connection between the aircraft and the instrument.8

The photo below shows one of the three amplifier boards. The construction is unusual, with some components stacked on top of other components to save space. Some of the component leads are long and protected with clear plastic sleeves. The board is connected to the rest of the amplifier assembly through a bundle of point-to-point wires, visible on the left. The round pulse transformer in the middle has five colorful wires coming out of it. At the right are the two transistors that drive the motor's control windings, with two capacitors between them. The transistors are mounted on a heat sink that is screwed down to the case of the amplifier assembly for cooling. The board is covered with a conformal coating to protect it from moisture or contaminants.

The function of each amplifier board is to generate the two control signals so the motor rotates in the appropriate direction based on the error signal fed into the amplifier. The amplifier also uses the tachometer output from the motor unit to slow the motor as the error signal decreases, preventing overshoot. The inputs to the amplifier are 400 hertz AC signals, with the phase indicating positive or negative error. The outputs drive the two control windings of the motor, determining which direction the motor rotates.

The schematic for the amplifier board is below. The two transistors on the left amplify the error and tachometer signals, driving the pulse transformer. The outputs of the pulse transformer will have opposite phase, driving the output transistors for opposite halves of the 400 Hz cycle. One of the transistors will be in the right phase to turn on and pull the motor control AC to ground, while the other transistor will be in the wrong phase. Thus, the appropriate control winding will be activated (for half the cycle), causing the motor to spin in the desired direction.

It turns out that there are two versions of the attitude indicator that use incompatible amplifiers. I think that the motors for the newer indicators have a single control winding rather than two. Fortunately, the connectors are keyed differently so you can't attach the wrong amplifier. The second amplifier (below) looks slightly more modern (1980s) with a double-sided circuit board and more components in place of the pulse transformer.

The pitch trim circuit

The attitude indicator has a pitch trim knob in the lower right, although the knob was missing from ours. The pitch trim adjustment turns out to be rather complicated. In level flight, an aircraft may have its nose angled up or down slightly to achieve the desired angle of attack. The pilot wants the attitude indicator to show level flight, even though the aircraft is slightly angled, so the indicator can be adjusted with the pitch trim knob. However, the problem is that a fighter plane may, for instance, do a vertical 90º climb. In this case, the attitude indicator should show the actual attitude and ignore the pitch trim adjustment.

I found a 1957 patent that explained how this is implemented. The solution is to "fade out" the trim adjustment when the aircraft moves away from horizontal flight. This is implemented with a special multi-zone potentiometer that is controlled by the pitch angle.

The schematic below shows how the pitch trim signal is generated from the special pitch angle potentiometer and the pilot's pitch trim adjustment. Like most signals in the attitude indicator, the pitch trim is a 400 Hz AC signal, with the phase indicating positive or negative. Ignoring the pitch angle for a moment, the drive signal into the transformer will be AC. The split windings of the transformer will generate a positive phase and a negative phase signal. Adjusting the pitch trim potentiometer lets the pilot vary the trim signal from positive to zero to negative, applying the desired correction to the indicator.

Now, look at the complex pitch angle potentiometer. It has alternating resistive and conducting segments, with AC fed into opposite sides. (Note that +AC and -AC refer to the phase, not the voltage.) Because the resistances are equal, the AC signals will cancel out at the top and the bottom, yielding 0 volts on those segments. If the aircraft is roughly horizontal, the potentiometer wiper will pick up the positive-phase AC and feed it into the transformer, providing the desired trim adjustment as described previously. However, if the aircraft is climbing nearly vertically, the wiper will pick up the 0-volt signal, so there will be no pitch trim adjustment. For an angle range in between, the resistance of the potentiometer will cause the pitch trim signal to smoothly fade out. Likewise, if the aircraft is steeply diving, the wiper will pick up the 0 signal at the bottom, removing the pitch trim. And if the aircraft is inverted, the wiper will pick up the negative AC phase, causing the pitch trim adjustment to be applied in the opposite direction.

Conclusions

The attitude indicator is a key instrument in any aircraft, especially important when flying in low visibility. The F-4's attitude indicator goes beyond the artificial horizon indicator in a typical aircraft, adding a third axis to show the aircraft's heading. Supporting a third axis makes the instrument much more complicated, though. Looking inside the indicator reveals how the ball rotates in three axes while still remaining firmly attached.

Modern fighter planes avoid complex electromechanical instruments. Instead, they provide a "glass cockpit" with most data provided digitally on screens. For instance, the F-35's console replaces all the instruments with a wide panoramic touchscreen displaying the desired information in color. Nonetheless, mechanical instruments have a special charm, despite their impracticality.

For more, follow me on Mastodon as @kenshirriff@oldbytes.space or RSS. (I've given up on Twitter.) I worked on this project with CuriousMarc and Eric Schlapfer, so expect a video at some point. Thanks to John Pumpkinhead and another collector for supplying the indicators and amplifiers.

Notes and references

Specifications9

The Bendix Central Air Data Computer (CADC) is an electromechanical analog computer that uses gears and cams for its mathematics. It was a key part of military planes such as the F-101 and the F-111 fighters, computing airspeed, Mach number, and other "air data". The rotating gears are powered by six small servomotors, so these motors are in a sense the fundamental component of the CADC. In the photo below, you can see one of the cylindrical motors near the center, about 1/3 of the way down.

The servomotors in the CADC are unlike standard motors. Their name—"Motor-Tachometer Generator" or "Motor and Rate Generator"1—indicates that each unit contains both a motor and a speed sensor. Because the motor and generator use two-phase signals, there are a total of eight colorful wires coming out, many more than a typical motor. Moreover, the direction of the motor can be controlled, unlike typical AC motors. I couldn't find a satisfactory explanation of how these units worked, so I bought one and disassembled it. This article (part 5 of my series on the CADC2) provides a complete teardown of the motor/generator and explain how it works.

The image below shows a closeup of two motors powering one of the pressure signal outputs. Note the bundles of colorful wires to each motor, entering in two locations. At the top, the motors drive complex gear trains. The high-speed motors are geared down by the gear trains to provide much slower rotations with sufficient torque to power the rest of the CADC's mechanisms.

The motor/tachometer that we disassembled is shorter than the ones in the CADC (despite having the same part number), but the principles are the same. We started by removing a small C-clip on the end of the motor and and unscrewing the end plate. The unit is pretty simple mechanically. It has bearings at each end for the rotor shaft. There are four wires for the motor and four wires for the tachometer.3

The rotor (below) has two parts on the shaft. the left part is for the motor and the right drum is for the tachometer. The left part is a squirrel-cage rotor4 for the motor. It consists of conducting bars (light-colored) on an iron core. The conductors are all connected at both ends by the conductive rings at either end. The metal drum on the right is used by the tachometer. Note that there are no electrical connections between the rotor components and the rest of the motor: there are no brushes or slip rings. The interaction between the rotor and the windings in the body of the motor is purely magnetic, as will be explained.

The motor/tachometer contains two cylindrical stators that create the magnetic fields, one for the motor and one for the tachometer. The photo below shows the motor stator inside the unit after removing the tachometer stator. The stators are encased in hard green plastic and tightly pressed inside the unit. In the center, eight metal poles are visible. They direct the magnetic field onto the rotor.

The photo below shows the stator for the tachometer, similar to the stator for the motor. Note the shallow notches that look like black lines in the body on the lower left. These are probably adjustments to the tachometer during manufacturing to compensate for imperfections. The adjustments ensure that the magnetic fields are nulled out so the tachometer returns zero voltage when stationary. The metal plate on top shields the tachometer from the motor's magnetic fields.

The poles and the metal case of the stator look solid, but they are not. Instead, they are formed from a stack of thin laminations. The reason to use laminations instead of solid metal is to reduce eddy currents in the metal. Each lamination is varnished, so it is insulated from its neighbors, preventing the flow of eddy currents.

In the photo below, I removed some of the plastic to show the wire windings underneath. The wires look like bare copper, but they have a very thin layer of varnish to insulate them. There are two sets of windings (orange and blue, or red and black) around alternating metal poles. Note that the wires run along the pole, parallel to the rotor, and then wrap around the pole at the top and bottom, forming oblong coils around each pole.5 This generates a magnetic field through each pole.

The motor

The motor part of the unit is a two-phase induction motor with a squirrel-cage rotor.6 There are no brushes or electrical connections to the rotor, and there are no magnets, so it isn't obvious what makes the rotor rotate. The trick is the "squirrel-cage" rotor, shown below. It consists of metal bars that are connected at the top and bottom by rings. Assume (for now) that the fixed part of the motor, the stator, creates a rotating magnetic field. The important principle is that a changing magnetic field will produce a current in a wire loop.7 As a result, each loop in the squirrel-cage rotor will have an induced current: current will flow up9 the bars facing the north magnetic field and down the south-facing bars, with the rings on the end closing the circuits.

But how does the stator produce a rotating magnetic field? And how do you control the direction of rotation? The next important principle is that current flowing through a wire produces a magnetic field.8 As a result, the currents in the squirrel cage rotor produce a magnetic field perpendicular to the cage. This magnetic field causes the rotor to turn in the same direction as the stator's magnetic field, driving the motor. Because the rotor is powered by the induced currents, the motor is called an induction motor.

The diagram below shows how the motor is wired, with a control winding and a reference winding. Both windings are powered with AC, but the control voltage either lags the reference winding by 90° or leads the reference winding by 90°, due to the capacitor. Suppose the current through the control winding lags by 90°. First, the reference voltage's sine wave will have a peak, producing the magnetic field's north pole at A. Next (90° later), the control voltage will peak, producing the north pole at B. The reference voltage will go negative, producing a south pole at A and thus a north pole at C. The control voltage will go negative, producing a south pole at B and a north pole at D. This cycle will repeat, with the magnetic field rotating counter-clockwise from A to D. Conversely, if the control voltage leads the reference voltage, the magnetic field will rotate clockwise. This causes the motor to spin in one direction or the other, with the direction controlled by the control voltage. (The motor has four poles for each winding, rather than the one shown below; this increases the torque and reduces the speed.)

The purpose of the capacitor is to provide the 90° phase shift so the reference voltage and the control voltage can be driven from the same single-phase AC supply (in this case, 26 volts, 400 hertz). Switching the polarity of the control voltage reverses the direction of the motor.

There are a few interesting things about induction motors. You might expect that the motor would spin at the same rate as the rotating magnetic field. However, this is not the case. Remember that a changing magnetic field induces the current in the squirrel-cage rotor. If the rotor is spinning at the same rate as the magnetic field, the rotor will encounter an unchanging magnetic field and there will be no current in the bars of the rotor. As a result, the rotor will not generate a magnetic field and there will be no torque to rotate it. The consequence is that the rotor must spin somewhat slower than the magnetic field. This is called "slippage" and is typically a few percent of the full speed, with more slippage as more torque is required.

Many household appliances use induction motors, but how do they generate a rotating magnetic field from a single-phase AC winding? The problem is that the magnetic field in a single AC winding will just flip back and forth, so the motor will not turn in either direction. One solution is a shaded-pole motor, which puts a copper bar around part of each pole to break the symmetry and produce a weakly rotating magnetic field. More powerful induction motors use a startup winding with a capacitor (analogous to the control winding). This winding can either be switched out of the circuit once the motor starts spinning,10 or used continuously, called a permanent-split capacitor (PSC) motor. The best solution is three-phase power (if available); a three-phase winding automatically produces a rotating magnetic field.

Tachometer/generator

The second part of the unit is the tachometer generator, sometimes called the rate unit.11 The purpose of the generator is to produce a voltage proportional to the speed of the shaft. The unusual thing about this generator is that it produces a 400-hertz output that is either in phase with the input or 180° out of phase. This is important because the phase indicates which direction the shaft is turning. Note that a "normal" generator is different: the output frequency is proportional to the speed.

The diagram below shows the principle behind the generator. It has two stator windings: the reference coil that is powered at 400 Hz, and the output coil that produces the output signal. When the rotor is stationary (A), the magnetic flux is perpendicular to the output coil, so no output voltage is produced. But when the rotor turns (B), eddy currents in the rotor distort the magnetic field. It now couples with the output coil, producing a voltage. As the rotor turns faster, the magnetic field is distorted more, increasing the coupling and thus the output voltage. If the rotor turns in the opposite direction (C), the magnetic field couples with the output coil in the opposite direction, inverting the output phase. (This diagram is more conceptual than realistic, with the coils and flux 90° from their real orientation, so don't take it too seriously. As shown earlier, the coils are perpendicular to the rotor so the real flux lines are completely different.)

But why does the rotating drum change the magnetic field? It's easier to understand by considering a tachometer that uses a squirrel-cage rotor instead of a drum. When the rotor rotates, currents will be induced in the squirrel cage, as described earlier with the motor. These currents, in turn, generate a perpendicular magnetic field, as before. This magnetic field, perpendicular to the orginal field, will be aligned with the output coil and will be picked up. The strength of the induced field (and thus the output voltage) is proportional to the speed, while the direction of the field depends on the direction of rotation. Because the primary coil is excited at 400 hertz, the currents in the squirrel cage and the resulting magnetic field also oscillate at 400 hertz. Thus, the output is at 400 hertz, regardless of the input speed.

Using a drum instead of a squirrel cage provides higher accuracy because there are no fluctuations due to the discrete bars. The operation is essentially the same, except that the currents pass through the metal of the drum continuously instead of through individual bars. The result is eddy currents in the drum, producing the second magnetic field. The diagram below shows the eddy currents (red lines) from a metal plate moving through a magnetic field (green), producing a second magnetic field (blue arrows). For the rotating drum, the situation is similar except the metal surface is curved, so both field arrows will have a component pointing to the left. This creates the directed magnetic field that produces the output.

The servo loop

The motor/generator is called a servomotor because it is used in a servo loop, a control system that uses feedback to obtain precise positioning. In particular, the CADC uses the rotational position of shafts to represent various values. The servo loops convert the CADC's inputs (static pressure, dynamic pressure, temperature, and pressure correction) into shaft positions. The rotations of these shafts power the gears, cams, and differentials that perform the computations.

The diagram below shows a typical servo loop in the CADC. The goal is to rotate the output shaft to a position that exactly matches the input voltage. To accomplish this, the output position is converted into a feedback voltage by a potentiometer that rotates as the output shaft rotates.12 The error amplifier compares the input voltage to the feedback voltage and generates an error signal, rotating the servomotor in the appropriate direction. Once the output shaft is in the proper position, the error signal drops to zero and the motor stops. To improve the dynamic response of the servo loop, the tachometer signal is used as a negative feedback voltage. This ensures that the motor slows as the system gets closer to the right position, so the motor doesn't overshoot the position and oscillate. (This is sort of like a PID controller.)

The error amplifier and motor drive circuit for a pressure transducer are shown below. Because of the state of electronics at the time, it took three circuit boards to implement a single servo loop. The amplifier was implemented with germanium transistors (since silicon transistors were later). The transistors weren't powerful enough to drive the motors directly. Instead, magnetic amplifiers (the yellow transformer-like modules at the front) powered the servomotors. The large rectangular capacitors on the right provided the phase shift required for the control voltage.

Conclusions

The Bendix CADC used a variety of electromechanical devices including synchros, control transformers, servo motors, and tachometer generators. These were expensive military-grade components driven by complex electronics. Nowadays, you can get a PWM servo motor for a few dollars with the gearing, feedback, and control circuitry inside the motor housing. These motors are widely used for hobbyist robotics, drones, and other applications. It's amazing that servo motors have gone from specialized avionics hardware to an easy-to-use, inexpensive commodity.

Follow me on Twitter @kenshirriff or RSS for updates. I'm also on Mastodon as @oldbytes.space@kenshirriff. Thanks to Joe for providing the CADC. Thanks to Marc Verdiell for disassembling the motor.

Notes and references

It is a very simple device for about $15. The main SoC is GX6605S. There is some limited info about this chip on C-SKY page and some technical docs at their tools repo. It communicates with a Bluetooth module TLSR8266 using UART. There is also 4MB SPI flash holding the whole bootloader called GxLoader, Linux kernel and filesystem with the main app. The last important chip is RDA5815M which handles the RF to I/Q conversion. In the future I plan to add an USB-to-Ethernet adapter and repurpose it as an cheap opensource SAT>IP server.

It is quite simple device. The main chip is Vango V9821S – a single-phase energy metering SoC chip, then there is one EEPROM 24C04, optical isolation for S0, display and power supply circuitry and a display. There is no serial interface so no way how to get more data out of the device, only JTAG for programming.