Dry-Air Pump and Pressure Systems

Dry-Air Pump Systems
As flight altitudes increase, the air is less dense and more air must be forced through the instruments. Air pumps that do not mix oil with the discharge air are used in high-flying aircraft.
 
Steel vanes sliding in a steel housing need to be lubricated, but vanes made of a special formulation of carbon sliding inside carbon housing provide their own lubrication as they wear in a microscopic amount.
 
Pressure Systems
Figure 3-28: "Twin-engine instrument pressure system" is a diagram of the instrument pneumatic system of a twin-engine general aviation airplane. Two dry air pumps are used with filters in their inlet to filter out any contaminants that could damage the fragile carbon vanes in the pump. The discharge air from the pump flows through a regulator, where excess air is bled off to maintain the pressure in the system at the desired level. The regulated air then flows through inline filters to remove any contamination that could have been picked up from the pump, and from there into a manifold check valve. If either engine should become inoperative, or if either pump should fail, the check valve will isolate the inoperative system and the instruments will be driven by air from the operating system. After the air passes through the instruments and drives the gyros, it is exhausted from the case. The gyro pressure gauge measures the pressure drop across the instruments.
 
Tag: Electrical system, pneumatic system, venture tube system, wet-type vacuum pump system, dry-air pump system, pressure system,
 
Tag: Types of Airspeed, Indicated Airspeed, Calibrated Airspeed, Equivalent Airspeed, True Airspeed, Mach number, Maximum Allowable Airspeed, and Airspeed Color Code.
 
Tag: Flying instrument, instrument flight, aviation, piloting, instrument rating, instrument flying training, instrument flight rating, instrument rating requirement, instrument rating regulation, aircraft, aero plane, airplane, and aeronautical knowledge.
 
Venturi tube: A specially-shaped tube attached to the outside of an aircraft to produce suction to operate gyro instruments.
 
Rigidity: The characteristic of a gyroscope that prevents its axis of rotation tilting as the Earth rotates.
 
Precession: The characteristic of a gyroscope that causes an applied force to be felt, not at the point of application, but 90° from that point in the direction of rotation.
 
Inverter: A solid-state electronic device that converts electrical current from d.c. into a.c. to operate a.c. gyro instruments.
 
Suction-relief valve: A relief valve in an instrument vacuum system to maintain the correct low pressure inside the instrument case for the proper operation of the gyros.