INS Alignment at Sea

Boy do I feel old. In the true bomber days of the A-3 we actually
carried a chronometer and a bubble sextant, shot the stars and got a
three-point fix. Ditto the sun and LAN local apparent noon. Plus a
"potty" of sorts and a working p-tube. Box lunches were in order, 3 or 4
hour cycles were the norm (I even flew once with Charlie James refueling
from A-4 tankers for eight hours.) We'd estimate surface winds by
checking the sea, and we even did pressure pattern navigation out to
Bermuda.

What's all this about gyros and other gizmos? (OK, Whidbey started
getting ASB-7 c. 1961 while we on the east coast stuck with the modified
Norden ASB-1a bombing system.)
Joel McEachen VAH-5 (Mushmouths)

Mike Kanze wrote:

We "girls" led more than one little lost lamb of a fighter through the goo.
And gave them gas as well.

"J. McEachen" wrote in message

Boy do I feel old. In the true bomber days of the A-3 we actually
carried a chronometer and a bubble sextant, shot the stars and got a
three-point fix. Ditto the sun and LAN local apparent noon. Plus a
"potty" of sorts and a working p-tube. Box lunches were in order, 3 or 4
hour cycles were the norm (I even flew once with Charlie James refueling
from A-4 tankers for eight hours.) We'd estimate surface winds by
checking the sea, and we even did pressure pattern navigation out to
Bermuda.

YOU feel old?!?!?!?!?!

Hell, I used to teach the MK6 Plotting Board to S2 types as FASOTRAGRULANT
QUONSET & CECIL in '72-'73!!!!! :-)

My primary traning film was made during WWII (and that's a No ****; we were
ordered to destroy it in 1973 due to references to "Japs" and other
politically incorrect language and immagery; we kept using it until the S2
program shut down).

What's all this about gyros and other gizmos? (OK, Whidbey started
getting ASB-7 c. 1961 while we on the east coast stuck with the modified
Norden ASB-1a bombing system.)
Joel McEachen VAH-5 (Mushmouths)

The good old Stoof had the ASN-30A. It was an electro-mechanical plotter
that got fed by a TAS computer, gyro, and doppler radar. The warranty was
good for 3 traps and/or arrestments. Then it would give up the ghost and it
was back to the ouija board (MK6). And, of course, the polar plotting
charts used by the 'Shoes (I can't remember the designation). Trying to do
Julie plotting at 100' using dividers with string attached to calculate A+B
elipses was interesting work.

Bill Kambic

If, by any act, error, or omission, I have, intentionally or
unintentionally, displayed any breedist, disciplinist, sexist, racist,
culturalist, nationalist, regionalist, localist, ageist, lookist, ableist,
sizeist, speciesist, intellectualist, socioeconomicist, ethnocentrist,
phallocentrist, heteropatriarchalist, or other violation of the rules of
political correctness, known or unknown, I am not sorry and I encourage you
to get over it.