NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: David Pike
Date: 2021 Dec 3, 08:05 -0800
Just a few additional comments on Robert Swartz’s Kollsman Periscopic Sextants notes. They weren’t all 28V. A few, marketed in Europe for the RAF and Bundeswehr, were 3V. You can spot a 3V Kollsman, because the box will include a rather nice spun aluminium Ever Ready torch like Granny used to have to go down the garden on a dark night with an outlet socket where the filament bulb should be. It takes three A batteries. I know 3 x 1.5V = 4.5V, but they must have decided that when it comes to running filament bulbs for long periods, the output soon drops to around 3V.
Unless you’re heavily into re-enactment you don’t need to use the averager in a static situation. Instantaneous readings will do. Then you don’t need to remember how to read the avarager.
Also, in a static situation, you can use a periscopic Kollsman on a table-top or windowsill, but you will need to point it in azimuth by eye and observe kneeling down. You can level it up using playing cards as shims. Who will be the first NavLister to modify Tex Ritter’s “Deck of Cards” to cover the stars and planets, and which will be the Joker?
Please see photos. I don’t want to wash my hands now. My fingers still have that lovely V&A Stores mothbally smell from the Kollsman box. I think I’ll avoid washing for a couple of hours until teatime. DaveP
