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A favourite tool for many navigators, including Space Shuttle pilots and Apollo
astronauts, seems to have been the older Hewlett-Packard calculators.  One
series allowed you to insert a magnetic media strip about 1.5 X 7.0 cm into a
special reader on the top of the keyboard.  I doubt that a lot of these are
still in service, however.  But, I got a nice new HP48-GX for Christmas.  This
allows the insertion of programs in the form of ROM (Read-Only Memory) cards,
which are not as susceptible to magnetism, sparks, etc. as the older magnetic
strips.  The ROM cards do not depend on batteries, and should not be confused
with the RAM cards that are also available for the same calculators.  And they
hold a lot more program.
 I recently purchased the Celestial Navigation Pac from Sparcom in Corvallis,
OR.  Now that is a hadny thing to have.  But, it makes you dependent on an
electronic device.  So, you have to be careful to heed all the warnings about
batteries for the calculator, etc.  And you must heed the "Sage Advice" section
in the manual that tells you to learn all about celestial navigation, and not
to become dependent on the program.  And it works only with the HP48 SX and GX
series.  So you need to spend the big bucks on one of those scientific
calculators first!
Having said that, I will tell you that the Pac is great!  An almanac good till
at least 2030 and probably far beyond that with slight errors, and many
subroutines for calculating sailings, rhumb line vs great circle courses (and
lengths), simulating great circles with a series of rhumb lines, and all the
standard sight reduction tools you could ask for.   At about US $100, it's paid
for in three to four editions of the NA.
I am having some difficulty in that some of the nicer features are not
described in the manual.  Apparently there have been programming enhancements,
such as inclusion of  a dip short calculation, and other add-ons like saving
dead reckoning positions under variable names.  These aren't in the manual.
Any help or discussion from the group about these undocumented goodies would be
much appreciated.
John Kabel, AP  Phone: (519) 453-9376 (H)
937 Apache Rd.   (519) 667-7716 (W)
London, Ontario  FAX: (519) 667-7725 (W)
N5V 2V7  E-Mail: John_Kabel.ault@XXX.XXX
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