In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
One upon a time, I took a trip in a plane...and being of that bent,
inquired as to what the whining was that I could hear as the pilot
prepared to take off "its the rotary converters spinning up: They supply
all the various voltages we need for the equipment". (it was a plane
decdicated to radar testing and full of equipment racks) I nodded sagely
and said 'surely it would be lighter to put in solid state inverters'...
"Mmm..." the pilot said "Until you watch what happens to the battery
voltage when we pull the undercarriage up and roll the flaps back in"

The inertia of the rotary converters acted like a ****ing great
capacitor apparently...

What was it 'rotary converting' from? Thought many planes used an aux jet
engine for power, or one of the main ones. And wouldn't the undercarriage
be powered off the hydraulics?

--
*Some days you're the dog, some days the hydrant.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.