Flight Lessons

"Joey Bishop" wrote:

Eddie Rickenbacker on navigation:

http://www.richthofen.com/rickenbacker/rick29.htm

I leaned over and shook the compass. It whirled a few times,
then settled itself in exactly the opposite direction! Again I shook
it and again it pointed to a new direction. Never have I seen a
compass - except those captured from Boche machines - that
even pretended to disclose the direction of north!

Three-quarters of an hour of gasoline remained to me. And a much
over-rated sense of direction - and no compass. Then I thought of the
north star! Glory be! There she shines! I had been going west instead
of south and would have had two hundred miles or so of fast flying
before striking the British lines near Ypres on my present course.

Keeping the star behind my rudder I flew south for fifteen minutes,
then dropping down, almost immediately found myself above a bend
in a stream of water that resembled a familiar spot in the River Mouse.

Rickenbacker's SPAD:

Top Speed: 130 mph.
Range: 2.5 hrs.
Ceiling FL 180 (tops!)

Imagine what a marine compass from any boat shop would
do for him, much less GPS...

-Mike Marron