NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: B52 star tracker
From: Gary LaPook
Date: 2026 May 1, 08:05 -0700
From: Gary LaPook
Date: 2026 May 1, 08:05 -0700
"The pilot I was talking to had been flying light observation planes over Laos. After that ended he moved into the U-2 cockpit so was in earlier versions of the U-2. I asked him what kind of sextant he had been using. I expected him to say the handheld MA-2 since there was no room for the periscopic version. But he said that it was built into the instrument panel, he just looked into an eyepiece in the instrument panel and took his reading."
So, it looks like the pilot I was talking with had an excellent memory!
Now we start a new quest! Find out the details of the sextant installed in the U-2
gl
