A sight to be treasured

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

A few years ago (it was 1957) I was flying training missions in the back end of a T-29. We flew out of Denver and my fellow cadets and I were learning to be Air Force navigators. GPS was far in the future so we were learning to find our position by shooting the stars with a sextant much as mariners since before the time of Columbus did. For us modern was World War II era radar and loran. First came learning the basic D R (ded reckoning) basics which involved finding one's speed over the ground, determining the direction the airplane was proceeding and noting the time. If you start here, fly this direction at 200 miles per hour for one hour, you should be here. Then comparing what you think your position is, to what you actually see out the window and identify on your map (in aviation we call it a chart) one can figure where your airplane actually traveled over the past hour and make a prediction for where it will be the next hour. The problem would be pretty simple if it weren't for wind but as we all know the air over the surface of the earth is constantly moving.

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