Ball-Mounted Gyro : Jacob Rabinow

Ball-Mounted Gyro
ca. 1942

As an outgrowth of his work on control systems for the Bat missile, Rabinow designed this gyroscope. If the motor oscillates violently and changes its axis of spin, for a short duration the wheel stays fixed in its direction as it rotates about a shaft-and-ball mounting. This occurs because of friction between the gyro wheel (plywood) and the air. At the Patent Office, Rabinow discovered that this device had first been invented in the Nineteenth Century.