Celestial Nav.

woodreau said:
Aboard ship, when you took your round of star shots, it was usually a two person deal - one person shot the star and did the time hack - the other person marked the exact time for each shot and recorded the observation. Then in was back into the pilothouse to plot the LOPs to fix the ship's position and reset the ship's DR (dead reckoning) plot. and then you compared your celestial fix with your GPS fix.
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Same with a plane, normally. On the KC-135, IIRC the Boom Operator took the shots with the Navigator computing the plots.
 
MikeD said:
Same with a plane, normally. On the KC-135, IIRC the Boom Operator took the shots with the Navigator computing the plots.
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Sorry,
But that is flat out wrong. It is totally different than a ship that is not moving at 5 NM a minute. Taking a "snapshot" observation in an aircraft is worthless for navigation purposes. If you are a rated navigator or have some training in this you would know this.

You may be talking about a heading check. This is a heck of a lot easier than a LOP, and can be done with instant observation.

For the OP (PPRAGMAN): If you want to use cel as a nav tool, without a proper aerial sextant and mount, I would concentrate on using Polaris and the Sun for heading checks. If you really want to shoot LOPs I would recommend Polaris which gives a pretty accurate latitude line. This can give you a good course lop for EW tracks and a really good speed LOP for NS tracks.
 
granlistillo said:
Sorry,
But that is flat out wrong. It is totally different than a ship that is not moving at 5 NM a minute. Taking a "snapshot" observation in an aircraft is worthless for navigation purposes. If you are a rated navigator or have some training in this you would know this.

You may be talking about a heading check. This is a heck of a lot easier than a LOP, and can be done with instant observation.
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Not totally wrong, may be talking about a different thing though, as you mention. But the Boom's did take shots with the sextants, as they were trained to do so. No, I'm not a rated Nav, just going by what the rated-Nav's from KC-135s in my unit told me.

Take it up with them.

Or better yet, take it up with the Boom Operator in this article:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0IBP/is_4_50/ai_n27026014/pg_2

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1968/jan-feb/mcardle.html

"Navigation and electronic rendezvous with receivers are the tasks of the third member of the crew, the navigator. He is assisted in part by the boom operator, who makes celestial observations using a periscopic sextant."
 
Mike,

First of all thanks for posting those articles. Indeed we were talking about the same thing, apparently (Shooting LOPs). But my comment stands true, about the differences between surface and aerial observations. Making LCDR in the Navy, I am pretty sure of it. Point being that shooting cel from an airplane is totally different than a surface platform. I find it an extremely interesting subject, and some day when I am sailing would like to shoot some LOPs.

As far as a 2 man show, you are probably right. I wish I had help doing it... Hardest thing I have done in aviation.

Heck, I was flying xna to clt the other night looking at the stars, and I realized I couldn't do what I use to do if you put a gun to my head.

Enjoyed reading the articles. This quote is factually wrong:

"We'd navigate across the planet using celestial navigation--basically like Columbus did in 1492," the sergeant said. "I hated to see the navigator go, but that's modernization."

Maybe latitude (off polaris), but the longitude solution was only solved by the Royal Navy in the 19th century.

Bear
 
granlistillo said:
Mike,

First of all thanks for posting those articles. Indeed we were talking about the same thing, apparently (Shooting LOPs). But my comment stands true, about the differences between surface and aerial observations. Making LCDR in the Navy, I am pretty sure of it. Point being that shooting cel from an airplane is totally different than a surface platform. I find it an extremely interesting subject, and some day when I am sailing would like to shoot some LOPs.

As far as a 2 man show, you are probably right. I wish I had help doing it... Hardest thing I have done in aviation.

Heck, I was flying xna to clt the other night looking at the stars, and I realized I couldn't do what I use to do if you put a gun to my head.

Enjoyed reading the articles. This quote is factually wrong:

"We'd navigate across the planet using celestial navigation--basically like Columbus did in 1492," the sergeant said. "I hated to see the navigator go, but that's modernization."

Maybe latitude (off polaris), but the longitude solution was only solved by the Royal Navy in the 19th century.

Bear
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It's all cool....all good info.

I'm sure it's very different between ship and aircraft, the specifics of which I honestly don't know since I have absolutely zero experience with either; so I can't speak intelligently on it besides what I'd been told. I'm just impressed by the craft as is (as you seem to be too) since the old-school ways of doing things are just interesting.

I'd love to learn it too someday, if I can get our Navs out from behind their computers long enough to show me!
 
Mike,
It is probably a bunch o' crap.
Nothing like a couple of beers after a 4 day trip to bring out the nav nerd in me.:o


To paraphrase Happy Gilmore: I am a nav playing pilot today...;)
 
granlistillo said:
Mike,
It is probably a bunch o' crap.
Nothing like a couple of beers after a 4 day trip to bring out the nav nerd in me.:o


To paraphrase Happy Gilmore: I am a nav playing pilot today...;)
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lol.....I play a pilot everyday. No one knows the truth! :D
 
I was on a -135 when I was in Co-pilot training doing Cell shots. I remember them shooting the sun during the day, but the accuraccy for a "GOOD" was something like +/- 30 miles. They would call "hack" and I would take down a radial/DME for them to compare it to later to see how well the student nav did.

But by the time I got to an operational squadron, the nav position had gone away, so never got to cross the pond with it.
 
Not drilling now, but the last ANG job I had was in a wing where all the ex WSOs (B1 OSO and DSO) bubbas were transfered to an IW mission. They got tankers and the last nav from training came back to the unit now replete with 135s instead of BONEs. His call sign... "ballast"

:(
 
Does anyone have any book recommendation on celestial and pressure navigation?

These are a couple of subjects that I have interest in, but have not found much info about.
 
smig said:
Does anyone have any book recommendation on celestial and pressure navigation?

These are a couple of subjects that I have interest in, but have not found much info about.
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I have THE recomendation for celestial nav. "The Celestial Naviagation Mystery Solved" by David Owen Bell. I believe you can still get this book from Landfall Naviagation in Greenwich, CT. Sorry no ISBN on my book.

I purchased many books on cel nav and until I found this one, I was still somewhat foggy on the use of my sextant. Not only does this book explain the theory, but it is a workbook. Give it a try,, you won't be sorry.
http://www.landfallnavigation.com/-bhc005.html
 
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