This is a Litton LN3-2A Inertial Navigation Platform from the sixties.
It was used in the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter and the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom aircraft.
Its main purpose is navigation. With an Inertial platform, you do not require the use of external sources like radio beacons or GPS, and it does not emit any radiation like radar.
This is a short video showing the 3 main gimbals moving.
From the outside towards the inside:
- Outer Roll Gimbal
- Pitch Gimbal
- Inner Roll Gimbal
- Azimuth Gimbal
The Inner Roll Gimbal is not moving in this video.
The 2 main gyros and the gimbals are used to keep the inner platform holding the 3 accelerometers in a fixed position wrt the earth’s surface.
The output of the accelerometers is integrated to get velocity.
The velocity obtained is one more integrated to get the distance.
Inside the orange gyros is a sphere floating in a fluid. The density of the fluid, the volume of the sphere, and its