NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Resilvering sextant mirror, 1919
From: Paul Hirose
Date: 2019 Mar 1, 21:00 -0800
From: Paul Hirose
Date: 2019 Mar 1, 21:00 -0800
I came across some instructions for resilvering a sextant mirror in a 1919 issue of the US Naval Institute Proceedings. Some of the supplies may be hard to find nowadays, such as the tinfoil wrapper on a pack of cigarettes. "At present when ships are making long sea voyages, frequently the navigator will find that his sextant mirrors are going bad and no spares available. He is also apt to find his sextant mirrors in such condition that although the sun can be handled, great difficulty is encountered with stars." https://books.google.com/books?id=sX-kfItGYgYC&jtp=245 There's also a sight reduction article. "When one must work in a sweat box, such as a chart house becomes when the ship is darkened, any method that shortens the work at that time is most welcome. Though there is nothing startling in the following process, it is something that no navigator I have met has used, and one of which none of the younger officers I have come in contact with have ever heard... The process is simply to combine, before sunset, all the elements of the work of the haversine formula possible, leaving very little to do after star sights are taken." https://books.google.com/books?id=sX-kfItGYgYC&pg=PA41 An article on "Feed Water Temperature" by P.V.H. Weems shows that his interests were not confined to navigation. https://books.google.com/books?id=sX-kfItGYgYC&jtp=383 "The Crossing of the Atlantic by Air" makes an argument for the airship, the author demonstrating mathematically that a crossing by airplane would be a freak occurrence. His estimates of starting fuel (3 tons, or 830 Imp gal) and ground speed (120 kt) for a notional airplane are remarkably close to the values for the successful flight a few months later. But he estimated 13.4 flight hours until fuel exhaustion, while Alcock & Brown flew 16 hours and still had a fuel reserve when weather forced them down. https://books.google.com/books?id=sX-kfItGYgYC&jtp=459 Tables of contents from the 1919 volume: https://books.google.com/books?id=sX-kfItGYgYC&pg=PP17&focus=viewport https://books.google.com/books?id=sX-kfItGYgYC&pg=RA1-PA184-IA5&focus=viewport https://books.google.com/books?id=sX-kfItGYgYC&pg=RA1-PA316-IA5&focus=viewport https://books.google.com/books?id=sX-kfItGYgYC&pg=RA1-PA492-IA5&focus=viewport https://books.google.com/books?id=sX-kfItGYgYC&pg=RA1-PA718-IA5&focus=viewport https://books.google.com/books?id=sX-kfItGYgYC&pg=RA1-PA876-IA13&focus=viewport