- Industry: Aviation
- Number of terms: 16387
- Number of blossaries: 0
- Company Profile:
Aviation Supplies & Academics, Inc. (ASA) develops and markets aviation supplies, software, and books for pilots, flight instructors, flight engineers, airline professionals, air traffic controllers, flight attendants, aviation technicians and enthusiasts. Established in 1947, ASA also provides ...
An electronic navigation system, operating in the ultrahigh frequency (UHF) range. The name TACAN is an acronym for TACtical Air Navigation. TACAN is used by military aircraft to give the pilot both the distance and direction from the transmitting stations on the ground.
Civilian aircraft have equipment that use the TACAN ground facilities to show the distance to the navigational fix. The equipment used in civilian aircraft is called DME (Distance Measuring Equipment).
Industry:Aviation
An electronic or electromagnetic device used to interrupt DC or low-frequency AC at regular intervals to produce a pulsating voltage whose frequency is high enough that it can be amplified by an AC amplifier.
Industry:Aviation
An electronic oscillator in a superheterodyne radio receiver. A superheterodyne receiver is highly selective because it selects an extremely narrow band of frequencies and rejects all frequencies on either side.
A radio-frequency (RF) signal is picked up by the receiver and mixed with a signal produced by the local oscillator, which is tuned with the same tuning control used to select the RF signal. Since both the local oscillator and the RF signal are tuned at the same time, the frequency of the local oscillator is always the same number of kilohertz or megahertz different from the RF, regardless of the frequency of the RF.
The difference frequency between the received RF and the frequency produced by the local oscillator is filtered and amplified through the remaining stages of the receiver. This frequency is called the intermediate frequency, the IF.
Industry:Aviation
An electronic oscillator that changes direct current electricity into alternating current whose frequency is in the radio-frequency (RF) spectrum.
Industry:Aviation
An electronic oscillator that has no stable condition. Astable multivibrators, also called free-running multivibrators, contain two devices such as transistors to control the flow of electrons. When one transistor is conducting, the other is not conducting. The two transistors alternate between conditions of conducting and not conducting.
Industry:Aviation
An electronic oscillator which produces alternating current from direct current. The frequency of the AC is determined by the resonant frequency of a piezoelectric crystal in the oscillator circuit.
Industry:Aviation
An electronic oscillator whose frequency changes if refrigerant gas is picked up in its sensor tube. The sensor tube is held below a suspected leak, and if any refrigerant is leaking, the sound produced by the oscillator will change from a low tone to a high-pitched squeal. Electronic leak detectors can detect a leak as small as a few parts of refrigerant gas in a million parts of air.
Industry:Aviation
An electronic oscillator whose frequency is determined by the resonant frequency of a quartz crystal.
Industry:Aviation
An electronic system used to detect the speed of a moving vehicle. Speed is measured by computing the change in frequency of an electronic signal bounced back from the vehicle.
This change in frequency is related to the speed the vehicle is moving toward or away from the source of the signal.
Industry:Aviation
An electronic warning system installed in an aircraft that detects nearby aircraft and warns the pilot, showing the range, altitude, and course of the impending threat. The TCAS informs the pilot of the appropriate maneuver to use to avoid a collision.
Industry:Aviation
