NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: astrocompass still in use
From: Paul Hirose
Date: 2002 Sep 25, 11:38 -0700
From: Paul Hirose
Date: 2002 Sep 25, 11:38 -0700
Robert Eno wrote: > > The astrocompass is still in use in Arctic Canada; in fact according to > one of my contacts in the airline industry, its use -- as a backup system > for maintaining a heading -- in small aircraft such as twin otters, is > still mandatory. Where would it be mounted? When I first worked on B-52s in the early 80s they still had the MD-1 astrocompass. It was totally automatic. A little astrodome about the size of a coffee cup was on top of the plane, and contained the "eye". The MD-1 gave precise heading and also functioned as an automatic sextant, continuously displaying your intercept with respect to the nav system's present position. It long predated the microcircuit era; the equations were solved with vacuum tubes, differentials, synchros, etc. Someone is selling a Mk II on eBay. Auction ends Oct 1. No bids yet. It's a "reserve" auction so no telling how much the seller really wants for it. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=717713573