> However, unlike the four fin system, three fins cannot be controlled by a human. To turn left, the top fin needs to be deflected, while the two angled fins need to be deflected by an amount which can only be computed by the sine and cosine of 2π/3 radians times the deflection of the top fin. Turning while climbing becomes even more complicated.
This is like saying that no human could hope to catch a ball flying through the air because it would require doing ballistic calculations in one's head.
I think the author should investigate the combination of control surface manipulations needed to make a coordinated turn in an aircraft, or doing a crosswind landing.
Or if he really wants to have is mind blown: how helicopters are flown.
While the brain is able to combine a lot of sources of perception and create complicated control outputs there are limits to this process. Coordinated turns and crosswind landings are mostly about matching the quite straightforward controls with the external situation and are not comparable to the three surface control problem.
The author spent some effort to build a joystick to demonstrate to us how the problem could be solved. I would think it appropriate you spend some time researching your point of view, maybe with a quick model in X-Plane. We will all be richer for what you find.
I think we'll have to disagree that maintaining coordinated flight is "straightforward." Or especially performing a crosswind landing, which is the controlled de-coordination of an aircraft so that it can hit the ground at exactly the right orientation.
If someone insists that it is 'straightforward' I'm left to conclude that either they're a very experienced pilot who has been doing it for so long that it's difficult for them to remember what it was like to learn, or they don't have an understanding of what's involved.
Consider this: You're flying an airplane. The elevators are trimmed to maintain level flight. Now you turn the yolk to deflect the ailerons, and the aircraft rolls. In this rolled state--say we're rolled 20 degrees from vertical--the elevators are no longer horizontal. They're 20 degrees off the horizontal meaning their force is no longer 100% pitch. It's now a combination of pitch and yaw. Firstly this means that they're no longer trimmed properly to maintain level flight and the aircraft will begin to pitch, secondly they are now causing the plane to yaw into the turn. So now you have to bring the rudder into the equation to compensate for the elevators, but it's also no longer a 100% yaw control surface, it now affects both pitch and yaw and you are left with a situation which should look very similar to that in the Zeppelin NT.
Describing the problem of coordinated flight, you end up with calculations which would be quite difficult to do by hand, and one might conclude that "no human" could hope to pull it off while sitting in a cockpit. Yet it is something humans can not only do, but with a bit of practice can do without even having to try very hard, by learning to "feel" the aircraft.
I think the author's joystick is neat and I congratulate him for making it. My only point is that the author errs in saying that "no human" could directly handle the Zeppelin NT's control surfaces. I think is error is not in overestimating the complexity of the problem but in underestimating the human ability to handle such problems.
I wish it was legal for me to put something like that joystick he devised on to a car. Then, at 29 I could finally learn to drive, which is something I repeatedly failed at; I can't map a wheel, a stick and three pedals (automatic is even more `magic`) to 'forward', 'back', and 'take this turn' in my head for the life of me.
I think you're probably suffering from the same problem I had when learning languages: you're being taught by someone whose teaching technique is optimised for "normal" people.
In my case, I was being taught by people who taught using techniques appropriate for an audience who thought in similar ways to them. I don't. When I finally found a technique that suited the way I think, and the things I already can do, suddenly I found I wasn't bad at languages - I was actually pretty good! But it was too late to gain real proficiency, and I no longer have the time I had in school to work on it. So I get by, rueing the lost opportunity.
But I've since honed my ideas into ways of teaching other stuff to people who think similarly to me, and who want to learn something quickly. I can teach you to juggle in 2 hours. Or teach you to unicycle in 2 hours. I wonder if I could teach you (the underlying rudamentary requirements of) how to drive in 2 hours.
Probably not - driving is more complex than either unicycling or juggling - but I bet the same ideas would work. Wish there was a way to test this.
This is like saying that no human could hope to catch a ball flying through the air because it would require doing ballistic calculations in one's head.
I think the author should investigate the combination of control surface manipulations needed to make a coordinated turn in an aircraft, or doing a crosswind landing.
Or if he really wants to have is mind blown: how helicopters are flown.