Flight Lessons

Hey Art, did you guys have a drift meter? Curious.

Navy P2Vs did in 50s -- along with Loran, radar, DR, celestial, and a few other
little helpers. Don't know about P3s, but I suspect they do. Handy. Don't
forget you can measure your ground speed with the things as well as drift.

Of course the navy tends to fly over water more than common sense should allow.

Quent

Quent

Subject: Flight Lessons
From: "Les Matheson"
Date: 8/7/03 3:17 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Hey Art, did you guys have a drift meter? Curious.

Les

No, but we had better. The Norden bombsight was the world's best driftmeter. If
you cranked out the drift by stopping the vertical hair, it would give you the
angle needed to correct the drift and track driift free. We call it a bomb
run. (grin). Can't beat that.

Arthur Kramer
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

In article ,
Steve writes:
In article ,
ArtKramr wrote:
-Subject: Flight Lessons
-From: Steve
-Date: 8/7/03 11:56 AM Pacific Daylight Time
-Message-id:
-
-In article ,
-ArtKramr wrote:
--Subject: Flight Lessons
--From: "Paul J. Adam"
--Date: 8/7/03 10:10 AM Pacific Daylight Time
--Message-id:
--
--
--With GPS you wouldn't need navigators, the lead pilot just follows the
--little arrow and everyone else formates on him. Big saving in manpower,
--training, and it frees up some weight per plane for more fuel or armour
--(or lets the B-26 be a little lighter)
--
--Not really. In the B-26 the bombardier and the navigater was they same guy
--
-
-I gotta wonder: would the bean-counters have figured that out before or
-after they removed the navigators and then sent out bombing missions?
-
-Or ever, for that matter.
-
-
-Steve
-
-
-
-
-Only the B-26 carried a bombardier navigator with that one guy doing both jobs.
- But our nav training was purely dead reckoning, pilotage and air plot. We had
-some celestial training, even had to derive the astro tables, but never had
-enough hours to be both confident and proficient in celestial. Well, I guess we
-could do an LOP ok.
-
-

Thanks, Art. I appreciate everything you write. I'm kind of curious for no
good reason; how far would you have had to fly to get a handle on cross-winds?
Assuming the weather guys didn't have any info for you, would you know on an
on-going basis how far you were being pushed sideways, or would you have to fly
a while and compare your dead reckoning with something else? What else would you
have available on a typical mission? (I don't know anything about navigation, you
won't insult me by talking down)

That's a good question, and, while I'm here, I've got a somewhat
related piggyback question. Art, did you guys use the Norden Sight to
measure drift while navigating to and from the target? Some of the
Navy documents that I've read on the early days of the Norden's
development indicate that that was one of teh things they wanted to
use it as a drfftmeter. From what I know, it ought to work, but since
the only real Nordens I've seen are display items...

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

Subject: Flight Lessons
From: Steve
Date: 8/7/03 1:35 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

Thanks, Art. I appreciate everything you write. I'm kind of curious for no
good reason; how far would you have had to fly to get a handle on
cross-winds?
Assuming the weather guys didn't have any info for you, would you know on an
on-going basis how far you were

being pushed sideways, or would you have to fly
a while and compare your dead reckoning with something else? What else would
you
have available on a typical mission? (I don't know anything about navigation,
you
won't insult me by talking down)


We would get winds aloft at briefings. But we flew all our missions in daylight
usually under pretty good conditions and pilotage did us fine, That is where
you look out the window, check with a map and find your wayusually with no
trouble. But we ALWAYS laid out a dead reckoning solution on every mission no
matter what. Also we alway knew what our ETA to every check point was and when
to expect important checkpoints, like the Rhine, The Moselle, the Meuse rivers.
The RAF guys in the heavies flying at night had a nightmare compared to us,

Arthur Kramer
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

Subject: Flight Lessons
From: (Peter Stickney)
Date: 8/7/03 6:33 PM Pacific Daylight Time

That's a good question, and, while I'm here, I've got a somewhat
related piggyback question. Art, did you guys use the Norden Sight to
measure drift while navigating to and from the target? Some of the
Navy documents that I've rea

Yeah. The Norden was a great driftmeter. I checked it often.

Arthur Kramer
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

wrote in message ...

Hmmm. In the civilian recreational pilot world GPS is pretty much seen
as the best thing to hit navigation since the invention of bread.

Exactly right. And therein lies the crux of the problem (e.g: GPS is
pretty much seen as the ONLY thing to hit navigation since the
invention of bread).

Who thinks this silly thought. A list of inventions to help navigation
since the invention of bread probably includes

maps
clocks
compases
VORs
Loran




I would believe there are fewer airspace incursions since there is
more awareness of exactly where you are and why the airspace
boundries are.

You're obviously not a flight instructor, huh?

This is the quality of argument? I offer a claim and a possible explanation ...
you question my profession? Wow, good argument.

My flight instructed pretty much never said "Don't use the GPS, it's the
devil's tooland you will burn in hell for it." He instead
taught me pilotage and VORs and GPSs too.

Are you a pilot?

Ya. Are you a pirate?

Do your pilot friends also think these things about GPS?

Yo ho yo ho shiver me timbers!

Yep. You're funny. Thank you for you wit.


-Mike (newbies, ya' just gotta' love 'em) Marron

I'm not a newbie.

Who thinks this silly thought. A list of inventions to help navigation
since the invention of bread probably includes

maps
clocks
compases
VORs
Loran

Windows

Quent

Same concept kill drift, compute crosswind, time, distance, heading for a DR
plot.

Les

"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
Subject: Flight Lessons
From: "Les Matheson"
Date: 8/7/03 3:17 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Hey Art, did you guys have a drift meter? Curious.

Les

No, but we had better. The Norden bombsight was the world's best
driftmeter. If
you cranked out the drift by stopping the vertical hair, it would give you
the
angle needed to correct the drift and track driift free. We call it a
bomb
run. (grin). Can't beat that.

Arthur Kramer
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

I go camping inna middle of nowhere and it never ceases to amaze me the
geniuses who take a GPS and no map. Can you imagine getting on your cell phone
and telling someone "I broke my leg and I am at xxxxxx,yyyyyy, no, I don't have
a map, I don't know where the nearest road is.."

In the White Mountains of New Hampshire a while back, three women
climbed the Tripyramids near Waterville Valley. They got tired, got on
the cell, and called 911. In the end, a helicopter came from Concord
(about 50 miles) to pick them up. They said to the pilot: "Why did you
take so long?" But at least they knew where they were.

Actually, my local FSS is quite happy to take lat/lon coordinates.
Whether they'd come for me is another question, of course.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

I dunno. I fly without an autopilot, sometimes with a GPS and
sometimes without. I simply don't believe that the GPS doubles
my total workload. I'm SURE it doesn't double my workload

When I read the post, I understood it to mean that flying GPS without
autopilot is harder than flying some other kind of nav aid *with*
autopilot, and I thought: "Well, that doesn't tell me much." If your
interpretation is correct, then I don't believe the study either, or
possibly the report of it.

Of course I am above it all, or rather below it all. At 2900 feet & 60
knots in the 06H, I can compare every road intersection or lake with
the chart. I do have an E6B in my pack, but that's just for swagger in
case I get ramp-checked, along with the printed preflight checklist.
I'm not sure I remember how to use the E6B.


all the best -- Dan Ford
email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com