NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Gary LaPook
Date: 2017 Aug 5, 23:50 -0700
Here is a photo of a Polhemus at a B-52 nav station.
BTW, are you sure that you carried two volumes of HO 229 for working sun and moon and planets?
HO 229 is a 6 volume set with each volume covering only 15 degrees of latitude. Maybe you carried volumes 2 and 3 of HO 249 which all latitudes instead.
gl
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The earliest Polhemus computer (celestialcircular slide rule) was manufactured in 1962 and didn't make its way into the B52 fleet before I finished my experience with them in 1965. I don't know whether the Polhemus was used in B52s after that time. During my years, we carried the big sight reduction tables, HO249 for stars and two volumes of HO229 for Sun, Moon and planets. Also of course we carried the current Air Almanac. The Polhemus would have reduced our baggage load by several pounds. When I taught the celestial navigation course, one of my students had a Polhemus in its original packaging, but I didn't have the time nor inclination to learn how to use it then. On the internet, the Polhemus is described as a Vietnam-era device. I'm sure it started to be taught in the nav schools about then, but I can't verify that.
