Navagating across the pond before GPS

[pilotyip]

How Rad Alt was used for Nav

The radar alt was used for pressure pattern Nav; you flew a constant altimeter setting to navigate south of a high-pressure center in the Northern Hemisphere eastbound, or north if westbound. That way you kept the tailwind all the time, and you moved left or right at a constant radar alt height to keep the altimeters matched to the pressure altimeter. I never used it, but I had to demonstrate how to use it on my Nav school final exam. Was told it was used in 40-50's in recips like C-54, C-118, and C-121.

 

[seagle]

Grid Navigation

And let's not forget about grid navigation for those trips across the pole to Moscow. Ground Plot DR, Air Plot DR, Wind Computations, MPP, Compass Precession and Precession and Nutation of the celestial bodies.

Wow - this is bringing back some memories.

 

[Spooky 2]

Ah yes Consolan. We tried it a few times in Europe. Not worth much. But we could tune in the teletype stations on Iceland on our ADF receivers while we were still on the ground at Prestwick. They were very powerful, but no ident.
I believe the ocean station ships did not really anchor. They were to stay in a rather large area and they did it by steaming into the wind and current to the edge of their area and then drifting back across it to the other side. As I recall they transmitted some coded info on their NDB signal which let you calculate roughly where within their area they really were.

DC

The ship would stay within a 100 mile grid and report which grid he "thought" he was in, thus giving you a chance to do a reverse plot on your position based upon his aasumed positin within the grid. All very crude by todays standards. Besides the ship in the NA there was a Candaian ship (Yankee) up in the NoPac that worked those waters in the same manner. Lets see a show of hands on how many board members have a Flight Navigators ticket? Pan Am 1966/67 thank you!

 

[seagle]

Flight Navigator Ticket

I'm in.

 

[Spooky 2]

And let's not forget about grid navigation for those trips across the pole to Moscow. Ground Plot DR, Air Plot DR, Wind Computations, MPP, Compass Precession and Precession and Nutation of the celestial bodies.

Wow - this is bringing back some memories.

"accross the pole"? Can't imagine any tracks or routings that would actualy take you accross the N Pole unless you had deviated intentionally to cross over or near the pole. My experience with Grid was limited to European to west coast of the USA where you would pass through the NCA/AMU at or around 73N.

 

[loewinbrau]

At ATA, we still fly all over the world using the Litton 92 INS. Just flew trans-pacific in an L1011, SEA-OKO yesterday. The 92 is quite accurate, but not very user friendly.

 

[bocefus]

And there was "Ocean Station November", a ship anchored about halfway to Hawaii, which could give you a radar fix from his (approximately) known position. I think there was an "Ocean Station Papa" in the mid-Atlantic as well.
A truly ancient radio navaid was "Consolan", sort of a super, over-the-horizon ADF. One old navigator said it would tell you which half of the world you were in.

Don't ever recall Ocean Station Papa in the Atlantic but Ocean Stations Charlie and Juliet were in the Atlantic with NDB's for obtaining a fix. Never heard of them providing radar fixes??

 

[seagle]

Grid Navigation

Spooky 2,

I think we may be talking about two different grids. When I was in SAC we used grid charts to help navigate up north because of the rapid convergence of longitude lines, thus affecting MH and TH rather quickly. Grid navigation eliminated the need for the compass to be "slaved" and allowed navigation in the DG mode. Hope this is right - I'm going back 25 years.

 

[Crzipilot]

Seagle, think your right. Was qualified Grid, but never did it, and barely remember it. But we had route authority using DC8's with omega 7800/7900's but with routes going north, had to switch to Grid, I.E. plotting charts were square grids and you navigated in DG, taking plots etc....

 

[seagle]

Grid Navigation

Crzipilot,

I remember the toughest part of Grid navigation was Grid entry and Grid exit. If you miscalculated Grid entry you were going to have a long day. Once you were in Grid, all you had to do was kill the drift and calculate compass precession to maintain your Grid track.

I recently flew a King Air 200 with the Collins Pro Line 21 - we have truly come along way from the days of radar and celestial navigation.

 

[Thedude]

You can still do it without UHF as well. Did it last year.

I hope you meant HF and not UHF, that is unless you are talking to military traffic only

 

[JimNtexas]

I was a student on the very last T-29 nav training mission, followed by a few missions in the mighty T-43. We learned how to navigate with sextant (HoMoTo), driftmeter, pressure pattern, consolan, manual Loran (used an oscilloscope to measure time difference, then plot the TD on a Loran chart), and of course, dead reckoning.

We even had a class on A-N ranges!

 

[cheyflyer]

Ahhh..yes

Enough of this LRN mumblejumble....I want to know more about freightdogfreds avatar!! Well...Fred.....

 

[Phaedrus]

Navigating was a fun job back when you actually had to navigate. I'm very fortunate to have exited the nav world when I did, but I have fond memories especially of bouncing around the Pacific through places like Wake, Kwajelein, Midway, Yap, Palau, and getting to see places like Enewetok, Iwo Jima (actually got to do touch-n-gos there), Bikini.
Keep talking, this is good stuff!

 

[Spooky 2]

Don't ever recall Ocean Station Papa in the Atlantic but Ocean Stations Charlie and Juliet were in the Atlantic with NDB's for obtaining a fix. Never heard of them providing radar fixes??

It was pretty simple, and crude but they established their position within a 10 mile square block within the 100 mile square grid. Then you called them up and gave them your estimated position. They then attempted a radar ID on your aircraft and gave your position as a bearing and distance from the ship in the designated 10 mile square grid.

Less than perfection but still a warm and fuzzy.

 

[Spooky 2]

Spooky 2,

I think we may be talking about two different grids. When I was in SAC we used grid charts to help navigate up north because of the rapid convergence of longitude lines, thus affecting MH and TH rather quickly. Grid navigation eliminated the need for the compass to be "slaved" and allowed navigation in the DG mode. Hope this is right - I'm going back 25 years.

No, we are talking about the exact same grid nav. This is why you need to be in True at all times while transitting the NCA, just for the reason you have mentioned above. Pan Am did not have authority for Doppler in the NCA, hence the Navigator and grid nave requirement, while most other areas of the world had Doppler and Loran approvals without benefit of the Navigator, This was in the dying days of Navigators on the Boeings and DC8's

PS, what were you doing in a P3 whilst in SAC? Does Curtiss Le May know about this deviant behavior on your part?

 

[seagle]

Spooky 2,

P3s came after SAC and after the USAF. While in SAC it was the B-52G.

 

[pilotyip]

Nav's Bermuda Triangle Story

In 1969 I flew a P-3A, it had an inertial Nav system, the ASN-42. It was build by the Singer Sewing Machine Company, they were the low bidder on their first adventure in to defense dept bidding, Needless to say it had some bad habits, like all of sudden taking off for one of the poles at Mach 2. We were on 12 hour EmCon (no electronic emissions from the aircraft) daytime mission out of the Azores, to recover in Bermuda. The 3P was listed as the primary Nav, I flew as 2P and agreed after we got off station, I would take the Nav into Bermuda to give the 3P some cockpit time. About 8 hours in to our mission I go back to take over the Nav, I notice he gives me a turnover fix, and he used the ASN-42 as his turnover point. I asked when was the last time he checked on the inertial position, he responded that he did not need to, it was working perfectly. I said I wanted to confirm our position before I accepted the Nav, so I tuned up the Loran A, not a line on the scope, all dead flat. So I took and assumed latitude of his position and computed a sun shot. The sun was not even in my field of view looking through the sextant. Holy Crap, we are lost somewhere a 1000 miles south of Bermuda. I told the PPC what was going on and said take a heading of 315, we should hit the east coast somewhere between Jacksonville and Norfolk. The sun was out, so of I took a sighting and backed into an assumed position. After sun shots every 20 minutes, we discovered we were 400 miles south of track. If you understood Cel Nav it was something you could trust. I had to reconstruct everything on that flight during the inbound to Bermuda so the being lost would not be discovered. I always think about if the 3P had continued to Nav on the ASN-42 that last calls coming from the airplane would have been "We are lost, our compasses are all screwed up and we can not find the sun" It would be the lead charter in the next edition of the Bermuda Triangle Story.

 

[Benhuntn]

Follow the contrails of the guy heading to your destination.

 

[Spooky 2]

Follow the contrails of the guy heading to your destination.

I'm sure that't the way you did it in the 89th? If you can't contribute to the disussion better than that.....why waste our time?