Another facet to the Nav question is the evolution of how the navigator was replaced over the years as the newer technology came available in the civil sector (mainly airlines).
Prior to and after WW2 the navigator was a regular part of just about any flying that was over vast distances regardless of whether it be over land or sea. As recently as the mid 70’ navigators were being used for operations transiting Africa and the Middle Eastern countries. Virtually all international airlines here in the US, including Pan Am, TWA, UAL (Hawaii only), Flying Tigers, Seaboard World, Slick, TIA World and a host of lesser know operators used navigators routinely. At Pan Am the 1st entry position for a new pilot was always the nav seat and this remained this way until in the mid sixties when the F/E seat became available for new hires. It was not uncommon to see an old grizzled Capt. at Pan Am move back to the nav seat just to check out the new guys nav procedures. Some of these guys could really bust your chops if they did not like your work.
Most of the navigators came up through the military pipeline but there were notable exceptions. After WW2 and up into the mid fifties the Radio Operator was another component of the international flight crew. Many Constellations and DC7’s had a formal Radio Operators station usually close to the two pilots. This was simply because many of the most remote parts of the word still used the telegraph key as the only source of communications. So, as technology progressed, the Radio Operator was eliminated. Many airlines gave the Radio Operator an opportunity to move over to the Nav seat, thus the progression on the flight deck remained in place. When UAL eliminated the Navs on the DC8’s going back and fourth to HNL, many of them were given the opportunity to move to the F/E position, some did and but most passed on this opportunity.
So what happened to the navigator in the sixties. Doppler/Loran A was the 1st assault on the nav requirement. Doppler worked well over “some” oceans. “Drop outs” were the biggest problem when operating with Doppler, especially in the Pacific. Bendix was the largest provider of Doppler systems as installed the B707’s/DC8’ during this period. The dual Doppler combined with the Edo Loran A was a powerful combination for many over water applications. In particular it worked well over the North Atlantic as the ocean tended to be rougher on the surface. It took awhile longer to get Doppler approval for the Pacific regions for this very reason. In the Pacific, CAL, NWA, PAA, TWA were all operating with Doppler/Loran, minus the navigator by 1969. Operations in the NCA/AMU were still required to use the navigators via grid navigation in these regions. Basically it took about a week of ground school and then several flights accompanied by either a real navigator or a pilot who was Doppler/Loran approved to be off and running. Typically there was a small pay override for these crews, something in the order of $4.00 per hour for the Capt. $3.00 for the F/O and $2.00 for the S/O as I recall. This advanced technology along with the B747’s that were arriving at a rapid rate in turn were responsible for some significant furloughs along about 1970 at Pan Am.
In the late sixties, Pan Am started experimenting with several inertial applications. Not sure but the first may have been a Singer INS that was installed in the B707 as a prelude to the Carrousel’s that finally showed up on the B747’s. There was some significant concern about the over all reliability of the Carousel 1V and Boeing had designed a Nav station in the B747 just in case things worked out differently. BOAC or now BA was reported to have had sextant mounts in their first few B747-100 as well. The rest is history as the various manufactures of INS, Delco, Singer, Litton etc prevailed and so here we are today. For those of you who have had the privilege of navigating a B707/DC8 to some far of destination, especially small island in the Pacific, the satisfaction of doing a great job is something that can never be overrated. So there you have it.
