NavList:

Navlist Visitor you asked: “Hey David,
Would you by chance have the contact information for the person that sells this manual or could you provide the page with figures 2 &3?”

There are several Dave’s who appear on Navlist.  Therefore, it helps if you could supply a complete name.  Otherwise, the chances are nobody will reply, because they won’t be sure if you mean them.  Having checked back, I think you mean me. 

The RAF Celestial Trainer was much simpler than the Link Celestial Trainer but much more practical than what appears to be the USN trainer for the A12 Sextant in your pictures.   I can’t see the USN trainer being a lot of use, because it has no wobble arrangement to teach the value of the sextant’s averaging mechanism in coping with an aircraft’s oscillatory motion.  You might just as well open the classroom window and shoot the Sun.   This is what we were required to do during training.  We had to sit in the doorway to our hut at night in our own time and calculate, shoot, and hand in 100 star shots before the end of the course (I think it was 100, but it might have been less).  With respect to the RAF Trainer, the facsimile producer says “This document was dated 1944.  I have not read any reports of the use of this training aid."  Neither have I.

 I’m a bit restricted copyright-wise upon what I can pass to you, but my colleague still operates on eBay although he doesn’t have the manual your speaking of currently advertised.  I suggest you look up eBay item number:156443832487 , go to the bottom of the page and first search ‘View sellers other items’, which is full of sextant manuals which might interest you.  When I checked, ‘Bubble Sextant Training Aid’ wasn't mentioned, but it might be for you.  If you can’t find it, you can use ‘Ask the seller a question’ to ask him if he’s got any of said manual left for sale.  Meanwhile, I’ll email him and refer him to your post on Navlist. DaveP