THIRTY SECONDS OF "WHICH WAY
IS UP"?
When the video starts the Flight Management System (FMS) screen
is
running a standard iterative "Position Monitor" display.
There are actually three independent position references used, and
shown on that display labelled FMS1, FMS2, and GPIRS. In
principle they should all agree exactly -- in practice to within 0.1
arcminutes. If you single-step through the video you will see
that
pretty much the case -- in Latitude -- but notice the MUCH larger
discrepancies in longitude, which grows larger with successive
screen updates.
The 4th line (MIX IRS) is a (weighted) average of the three.
Below that 4th line, where the display text says NAV (3 times), that
gives the closing distance (in nautical miles) to a reference
programmed waypoint (90N in this case). You can see the IRS1,
IRS2, and IRS3 solutions from the three references do not quite
agree; part of that of that is that they actually are
slightly asynchronous updates (but the amount of asynchronicity
is [or should be] known to the FMS software).
We were doing a slow overflight - with a ground speed of 257
nm/hr. So,
when we were about half a nautical mile out (about 7 seconds
flying time), I switched over to video the "glass cockpit"
compass display. On that display, the yellow stick-figure
of an airplane at the center of the navigation arcs represents the
position of the airplane. The two dashed arcs represent
distances of 5.0 and 7.5 nM from its instantaneous location. The
outer compass rose is 10.0 nm. The green diamond is the
projected preset target position of the aircraft (8950N) and
"heading" , at
+10 nm from its current position. The green solid line represents
the aircraft's projected flight vector.
NOTE THE YELLOW WARNING (which was flashing, but was not picked
up as flashing on the video because of the frame rate) that says
"CHECK HeaDinG" as the outer azimuth circle is spinning around!
Also (for later reference) at the start of this video segment our
ill-determined "heading" is appx 95 deg "true", as the compass is
spinning around.
As the "green line" disappears (the display SW could not calculate a
heading), and as the video zooms out, we were 10.1 nautical miles
from the "10 nauticla mile from Pole" position - which you
can JUST read on the upper right as the display blanks out. The
airplane icon then disappears and the display blanks out as we cross
the "Where the hell are we {in longitude}" singularity.
As we cross the North Pole (and as Sebastian sticks his finger in front
of the display!), the display S/W begins to recover and rebuild
the screen. Note right after the offending finger is
removed the distance from target goes from 10.1 nm to 10.0 nm (as
it should right at the pole; but actually with a six
second delay), as the compass continues to spin...
Neat!, eh?