The shipboard alignments require Ship Inertial Navigation System (SINS)
data via either a cable or from an RF data link. This gives a fairly high
quality alignment--it even worked well on the A-6's IMU/INS.

In the days of the A-6A and its AN/ASN-31 inertial, shipboard alignments
were sometimes colorful and problematic affairs. There were none of the
goodies like RF links or GPS for us to play with.

Mini-sea story #1: On CORAL MARU's 1973 cruise, we (VA-95) found that (1)
most of the SINS cables were beat to hell and wouldn't work because (2) our
predecessor A-6 squadron in CVW-15 - VMA(AW)-224 - didn't know what
alignments were. It took us most of the cruise to weed out and survey the
hopelessly irrepairable cables and gradually accumulate a set of reliable
and maintainable ones.

Mini-sea story #2: On 95's 1975 cruise (still with CVW-15 / CORAL MARU), an
A-6 launched off Taiwan for a penetration flight to exercise ROC air
defenses. The crew obtained an normal SINS alignment, launched (this time
without the all-too-common inertial dump on the cat stroke) and commenced
the penetration. The crew became quite concerned however when the CIP did
not appear at all at the time and configuration briefed. Quickly - and
correctly - determining that they were actually headed for the friendly
shores of the Peoples Republic, they 180ed and bustered back to Mother.
Cause of problem? SINS posit was 40 nm (yes, 40 nm!) in error.

(There is a lot more to this second story than just the above.)

Prurient trivia item #436: The control panel for the AN/ASN-31 is described
in the NATOPS manual as the "Erection Controller Panel".

Owl sends.
--
Mike Kanze

436 Greenbrier Road
Half Moon Bay, California 94019-2259
USA

650-726-7890

"When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading."

- Henny Youngman


"Doug "Woody" and Erin Beal" wrote in message
...
On 11/1/03 4:35 PM, in article yyWob.251407$pl3.192778@pd7tw3no, "Gary
Watson" cf104@ihate spam.shaw.ca wrote:
[rest snipped]