Welcome to the Woodward Governor Company unofficial History Site

These Woodward hydromechanical fuel control units(FCUs) where called the''can'' style of engine controls. They implemented fuel limiting(based on engine shaft speeds, ambient pressures and temperatures, with 3D cams) to avoid compressor stall, combustor flame-out, over torque, over speed and many other limitations of gas turbines. These hydromechanical kind of fuel control systems were everywhere from the 1960's through the 1980's until digital controls became practical and reliable enough to handle those functions. Woodward, Bendix, Lucas, Hamilton-Standard and Chandler Evans all got rich building these amazing swiss watch style fuel controls. At the height of that era, Bendix built an all hydromechanical system for engines on the early F-16's, F14's and F-15's. They were so complicated (over 5000 parts) that their reliability was a joke (<500 hours MTBF). There must still be thousands of these 3D cam type fuel control systems out there. Woodward Governor Company's were some of the best.

Created on

Sunday 3 September 2017

Posted on

Tuesday 5 September 2017

Albums

• Historical large aircraft gas turbine engine and fuel control information. / A SMALL SLICE OF THE WOODWARD GOVERNOR COMPANY'S JET ENGINE HYDROMECHANICAL FUEL CONTROL HISTORY. / Brad's CFM56 jet engine fuel control history project. / Part two of the disassembly project for the CFM56-3 jet engine fuel control. / Part three of the jet engine fuel control history project.

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