Wartime navigation

[banaari 27]

Revising my way through the yachmaster theory, and got to thinking: This stuff involves precision charting and a clear head.

So what must it have been like for the navigators on allied shipping (naval and merchant) operating in extreme tidal conditions, no GPS, no chartplotters, no hand-held calculators, light houses etc blacked out... and under attack?

Anyone know of any good books on the topic?

[Guest]

The Riddle of The Sands - Erskine Childers

[Guest]

If you think it bad on the water, spare a thought for the bomber command. 10 hours training and pushed down a foggy runway with an atlas and a "germany's that away ----> nice knowing ya"

[Guest]

Also read Chichester's Biography (The Lonely Sea and the Sky?). He spent the war years teaching pilots to navigate.

From Wikipedia:

Chichester joined the Royal Air Force at the outbreak of the Second World War, serving in the United Kingdom as a navigation expert. He was granted a probationary commission as a pilot officer in February 1941[3] and was promoted in flying officer in August of that year.[4] In July 1944 Chichester gained a temporary promotion to flight lieutenant.[5] He wrote the navigation manual that allowed the pilots of single-handed fighter aircraft to navigate across Europe and back using kneeboard navigation similar to that which he had used in the Pacific. At the end of the war, he stayed in the United Kingdom. He purchased 15,000 surplus Air Ministry maps, initially pasting them onto boards and making jigsaw puzzles out of them, and later founded a successful map-making company.

[Steve_C 0]

Childers book is more about coastal navigation and was written in peacetime. Strange guy, was a personal friend of Churchills, but shot for gun running weapons to the IRA...

[erice 732]

think of how many carrier based planes, often pilot only

 

took off, flew a dog legged course over the horizon, to hide their carrier's position

 

attacked another ship, keeping track of; their own safety, damage to aircraft, fuel levels and time

 

before flying another dog leg course back to prearranged co-ordinates where they hoped their carrier would be as long as it wasn't attacked or held up somehow

 

in radio silence

 

must have been many who got lost, or got their too early or late

 

battle of the coral sea

 

just off townsville

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Coral_Sea

 

and even if they did survive a ditching

 

life-rings were no protection from the sharks

[Steve_C 0]

We are so lucky to have the tools we have now, even without ground support a dummie like me could undertake aerial search navigation, which frees up a pilots time when flying around at low level

[idlerboat 116]

The flying boats that did the Oz to Lord Howe Island, used sextant navigation !! out of a bubble in the top of the aircraft.

 

At the time, the island was just too small a target to use any other type (dead reckoning) etc..

If you missed the shoreline you could fly around for hours otherwise.

[erice 732]

how about borrowing a couple of dodgy old radio Automatic Direction Finders

 

to hop across the pacific from the usa to oz in a couple of crop dusters

 

what could go wrong?

 

http://airodyssey.net/1999/03/01/movie-flt771/

 

http://www.navworld.com/navcerebrations/mayday.htm