Gadgetory

the California National Guard recently received a highly sophisticated tool new helicopters the ch-47f Chinooks monitor navigate and essentially fly themselves the previous Chinook model the 47 d was introduced about 30 years ago technologies changed a bit since then just take a look at the cockpit which has gone from using these needle based instruments to using a slew of computer displays 17 computers and cockpit technology called the common avionics architecture system or Cass turn the ch-47f into a smart aircraft autopilot features simplify flight planning we can sit on the ground on a computer get a laptop if you will and program in everything you want the aircraft to do we take that that digital card plug it into the cockpit and then upload that data into the aircraft and tell it what we want it to do where we want it to go a ring laser gyroscope enables greater accuracy it's so sensitive that the aircraft can register the Earth's movement when it's rotating it knows it's doing that it's not accurate which gives us the ability to hover within one foot of a coordinate that we receive so one of our jokes is do you want the front of the aircraft over your part or the back of the aircraft over your bed or over your LZ because you can be that precise yes with the Cask cockpit technology the Chinook's can fly in less than ideal conditions then in addition I get this information which is our hover symbology that tells us what we're doing in a hover how high we are off the ground where we are in relationship to a point on the ground I don't have that at all in a D model I have no hover reference information at all other than looking at your window so in bad weather just landings snow conditions I can see all this data right here know exactly where I am the new Chinooks were designed to reduce vibrations why is that important a smoother ride means you can fly longer without suffering from helicopter fatigue they put in what's called monolithic construction which is a new construction technique on the airframe beefing it up making it stiffer in all the key areas what compiled 'its do now that technology is saving them so much time focus on their mission in stockton california i'm suma das cnet.com for CBS News