NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: John D. Howard
Date: 2019 Oct 23, 20:10 -0700
Hewitt,
I am no expert, but let me chime in. AE and Noonan had a drift meter and drop flares, so easly could measure the wind - using doubble drift. For daytime, they had alumumn power bombs to put a spot on the ocean for drift sights. As you know Noonan could use cel-nav to get a speed line and a course line so DR would have not been too far off - for an experenced navigator.
As for the quality of RDF at 2000 miles - not worth a crap. I flew world wide in the seventies, before GPS, and used ADF alot. Over the ocean a strong radio would give a good RDF for at most 500 miles, but because thunderstormes and other weather events throw off the bearing we would not rely on a RDF more than maby 200 miles. Rember, a bearing from a RDF is a great circle, so maps showing straight bearings thousands of miles long are way off.
John H. retired USAF and airline captain.
