Electronics Laboratory

Bob Glusick
August 10, 2004 

Integrated Engine Instrumentation System (IEIS)
September, 1972

The Integrated Engine Instrumentation System (IEIS) was a project for the Navy, sponsored by the Aircraft Engine Instruments Department. The team photo shows Marty Fine (Elab), Dick Skovholt (AEID Engineering Manager), Bill Cole (Navy project engineer) and Bob Glusick (E Lab). The project was guided by a very colorful manager at Navy, Jack Wolin.  

The base concept was to replace a variety of mechanical engine instruments with computer controlled solid state display panels, a concept now being realized in modern aircraft control. The project introduced many new display concepts. As shown in the live CRT screen, the information was graded most important at the top, followed by advisory in the central area, and performance information below that. The display indicates a critical over temperature situation which has persisted for 17 seconds. Major engine subsystems were selected by the menu bar at the top. Below that, you can see that the Turbine Blade Temperature (TBT) is at 926 degrees in engine 1, and the N1 & N2 compressor speeds are nominal. Rather that jumping out of the plane, the recommended pilot action is to "Throttle back". The 2 dimensional performance display indicates where the engines are in Altitude / Mach-Number space, with a recommended profile to operate within for this engine. 

The actual hardware used a CRT to simulate a solid state display, and had a separate display generator to control it. While it might have made a lot of technical sense to drive it with a GP computer, the Navy had strict guidelines for buying computers, and that was not an option for this project. Therefore, the simulator control box on the right in the picture was very intentionally not a "GP digital computer".  It did have re-configurable sequencers controlled by RAM and analog computer components to solve the simplified engine performance differential equations.