NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Chuck Varney
Date: 2024 Nov 2, 14:57 -0700
In his 29 Oct 24 post, Art Leung wondered if Carbonara Labs had a connection to the Carbonara who held patents on Kollsman bubble sextants--adding that he could find nothing on Victor Carbonara.
The link below is for a New York Times obituary, dated 24 February 1975, for Victor E. Carbonara
The opening paragraph is: “Victor E. Carbonara, retired president of the Kollsman Instrument Corporation, and holder of patents in air navigation, died yesterday at his home, 49 Eklerfield Road, Manhasset, L.I, He was 79 years old.”
Further down: “After retirement, he continued to do experiments in his laboratory in Port Washington, L.I.”
His home was in Manhasset and he did experiments after his retirement from Kollsman in 1960 in his laboratory in Port Washington—which is less than three miles from Manhasset.
I found that Carbonara Labs was incorporated in Huntington, L.I. in June 1976. Huntington is less than 18 miles from Port Washington. While it proves nothing, I think this cluster of Carbonara-related towns on the north shore of Long Island, New York suggests that, yes, there is a historical connection between Victor E. Carbonara and Carbonara Labs.
To provide some formal documentation on the type of stadimeter under discussion in this thread, I have attached two .PDF documents.
One is the U.S. Navy maintenance instructions manual for the Mark 5 Mod 1 Sextant Type Stadimeter (NAVSEA 0283-LP-220-8000, dated 1986). Its 84 pages give detailed instructions on disassembly, inspection, reassembly, and test. I have attached screen shots of the first and third pages of the five-page section on description and one page from the disassembly section to give examples of the document’s content.
Since first looking at this document five days ago, I, like David Pike, have wondered why the free end of the arcuate arm has a hole in it. I’ve found no mention of the reason for it. I can speculate that at one point in time, a pin may have been mounted in it and this pin butted against a projection in the arcuate arm guard to prevent the arcuate arm from being pushed too far down by the radius arm spring and plunger if the distance drum were backed out too far (as on the stadimeter in Murray Buckman’s second post on 31 October).
The second attached .PDF is for the stadimeter patent filed by Thomas O. Brandon of the U.S. Navy in 1943, but not granted until 1946. As seen in the attached screen shot from it, it’s of the type that’s the subject of this thread.
Chuck V.
