NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Robert Eno
Date: 2016 Jul 5, 21:25 -0600
I will add one more piece of information to support the astro navigation camp.
The Canadian members here should be familiar with the name “Brigadier (RCAF) General Keith R. Greenaway”. Greenaway was the guru of arctic air navigation and one of the early pioneers in that field. He worked extensively with the USAF in developing techniques for navigating in the polar regions long before reliable electronic position fixing came into its own. In his book, “Arctic Air Navigation” (1951), he refers to our favourite pastime as: “astro navigation” and to its practitioners as “astro navigators”.
I have long preferred the term “astro” navigation over “celestial” navigation; not for reasons of national pride because it just sounds better.
I don’t recall ever seeing Greenaway wearing an ascot. He was a very down-to-earth fellow.
Robert
From: NavList@fer3.com [mailto:NavList@fer3.com] On Behalf Of Frank Reed
Sent: July-05-16 7:09 PM
To: enoid@northwestel.net
Subject: [NavList] Re: AstroNav Course
Canadian Bob Goethe wrote:
"'Astro Nav' seems to be more British.
Probably there is somebody at Vanderbilt, with responsibility for funding this course, who is taken with the idea of wearing an ascot. Probably they took elocution lessons from sombody in Cambridge, in the hopes that it would add 10 points to their IQ."
And Canadian Robert Eno wrote:
"To the best of my knowledge, the term 'astro-navigation' is a British term,
but I can also include Canada in that camp, who unlike our rebellious cousins to the south, decided to stay within the warm embrace of the English Monarchy. An no, Canadians do not wear ascots nor do we say 'pip-pip'."
Ahh... two Canadians separated by a common language!
It's all just a reminder that the practice of navigation is cultural as well as scientific.
Frank Reed
