NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Gary LaPook
Date: 2017 Jan 31, 08:58 -0800
Maybe the made for TV movie Mercy Mission - the Rescue of Flight 771 should be added to Frank's list of films in which "sextants" are used. I have not seen the film but have heard that Hollywood created the impression that an all-American crew performed the rescue (Grrr!!! if that is true).
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SPOILER ALLERT==================================================
The lost pilot was instructed by the airline pilot to use his hand like a Kamal to meaure the height of the sun while the airline pilot did the same thing and determined where that little guy was in relation to the airliner. It worked, so the lengths of the two pilots' arms and the thicknesses of their fingers must have been about the same. (I hope they allowed for the different amount of dip from their different altitudes, about a three degree difference.) Then later, as the sun was setting, the pilot observed sunset and the people at the New Zealand airport noted that their sunset occured a little bit later (allowing for dip?) so knew where the little guy was in relationship to the airport.
gl
