BLIND flying without special training, together with general improvement in flight control, is possible with a new simplified type of artificial horizon. The instrument in most respects provides a safer reference for control than does the natural horizon, because it deals directly with the real source of control, which is the air.
Air is to the airplane as the road to an automobile; the different movements of the airplane relative to its own road of air primarily determine its control. To make such movements visible is a function of instruments, but a set of several different instruments to show separate movements of the airplane is unnecessarily complicated and expensive. A single instrument giving the unity and simplicity of the natural horizon but having a directness of reading that can be obtained only from the directly adjacent air is the remedy.
The new instrument, called the Air-I-Zon, serves as an aerodynamic horizon by presenting a visualization of the air through which the plane is flying. This provides a simple reference relative to which all essential changes in the lateral and longitudinal attitude of the airplane are immediately apparent. The principles involved and the practical development of the instrument are described in the paper.