what do R.A.F Nav's use?

[NDW]

evening all

Are current tornado navigators(wso) using Maps, Moving map display,
this sort of calculator http://www.transair.co.uk/Category.asp?SID=1&Category_ID=429
which calculates speed, distance, time, velocity, angles e.g. or is all data electric now?

thanks

Ndw

[r2_unit]

NDW,

The only time a tonka nav would pick up one of those things would be to plan a long transit route - normally planned using rule of thumb/MDR but careful planning sometimes required if gas is tight.

They can be found in any fastjet planning room in the bottom drawer of the rear-most filing cabinet and are normally covered in dust.



AIDU,

WTF???

[minigundiplomat]

Poofs.

Why don't they just use the force like the SH Force?

[orgASMic]

MGD - don't you mean IFR? I Follow Roads/Railways!

[Bo Nalls]

NDW,

Just to add that the TAMPA explanation above is very good, but all that does is provide the crew with a plan. Normally the crew will transfer the plan, via a data module, into the aircraft main computer (GR4). The crew will also carry maps & data sheets printed from TAMPA.

Once airborne the Main Computer will take inputs from the on-board avionics (LINS, GPS, TRN, Doppler, ADC etc) in order to calculate the ac position. This position is displayed to the crew via moving maps and through other sensors. Dependent upon which mode the computer is working in the crew may also have the ability to update periodically the aircraft position using on-board sensors (GPS, Radar, Visually, FLIR etc).
The avionics, either independently or via the main computer, will provide the crew with indications of present position, heading, track, drift, required track, x-track error, wind velocity etc. The wiz-wheel you linked to is not used in the aircraft.

The pilot has a digital map, with planned route overlay, whereas the nav has a film based map projection system without a route overlay (soon to be upgraded though).

The crew will carry paper copies of the route (1:500,00 scale) and target area maps (1:50, 000 scale). Satellite pickies of the target area could also be carried.

The kit does provide a very accurate output if all is working as advertised. The fun starts when elements fall over, as evidenced by a certain crew in Iraq this year :D:D

--------------------------------------------------------------
The Tornado nav system can also be described thus:

The aircraft knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is the greater), it obtains a difference, or deviation.

The guidance system uses deviations to generate error signal commands which instruct the aircraft to move from a position where it is to a position where it isn't, arriving at a position where it wasn't, or now is. Consequently, the position where it is, is now the position where it wasn't; thus, it follows logically that the position where it was is the position where it isn't.

In the event that the position where the aircraft now is, is not the position where it wasn't, the guidance system has acquired a variation. Variations are caused by external factors, the discussions of which are beyond the scope of this report.

A variation is the difference between where the aircraft is and where the aircraft wasn't. If the variation is considered to be a factor of significant magnitude, a correction may be applied by the use of the autopilot system. However, use of this correction requires that the aircraft now knows where it was because the variation has modified some of the information which the aircraft has, so it is sure where it isn't.

Nevertheless, the aircraft is sure where it isn't (within reason) and it knows where it was. It now subtracts where it should be from where it isn't, where it ought to be from where it wasn't (or vice versa) and integrates the difference with the product of where it shouldn't be and where it was; thus obtaining the difference between its deviation and its variation, which is variable constant called "error".

all very simple really :eek:

[L J R]

Misison planning for 90 minute sortie with TAMPA = 47 minutes.

Mission Planning WITHOUT TAMPA = nominate TOT with 40 second split and two Slips/Jumps each then go straight to outbrief and see you in OTA E (Fights on abeam Bell Rock) - - how long did that take.... 9 seconds???...


Questions....



...copy the poofta call from the rotary dude...(should have worked harder at school)

[Phil_R]

I was once privy to a brief demonstration of what I assume was TAMPA.

Unfortunately I couldn't see what was going on, because of a large crowd of young male aircrew very enthusiastically demonstrating their technology to the attractive young actress I was with.

So, I stood in the corner and talked to the one female member of the squadron's aircrew about haircuts.

[Adam Nams]

It makes you wonder how the SAR boys and girls ever manage to find their way to any incident (usually a 6 figure grid ref) by day or night, with less than 15 mins to get airborne, without the gucci kit you mention. :rolleyes:

[Octane]

Are RAF navigators (C-130 and Nimrod) still taught to use a sextant? Ignorant but curious!

Octane

[Been There...]

Nope, went out around 10 years ago

[diginagain]

I thought Tonka WSO used a 1:1,000,000 map with all the MacDonalds outlets marked on it?

[The Nr Fairy]

Slight digression - put me back in my box if you will.

In the days, long past, of jumpseating, was in a 757 to Vienna. Co-pilot, ex-RAF, had a Kellogs World Atlas in his flight bag, which he used to show me where we were.

The fact he told me we were overhead Berlin using the atlas while the magenta line showed Frankfurt and a right hand turn was a small moment of amusement on the trip !

[Octane]

What about RN navigators?!

Octane

[diginagain]

Not much room for an astrodome on the roof of Merlin. Even less on a Lynx.

[Octane]

Diginagain,

I was referring to the people who tell where Her Majesty's warships to go!!
If there was an astrodome in a Lynx there would be a strobe effect I reckon? The 'strobe' shift maybe?

Octane

[Pontius Navigator]

Diginagain,
I was referring to the people who tell where Her Majesty's warships to go!!
Octane


I think that will be their Lordships down the hole at N*******d.

[brakedwell]

Dropping mail to Her Majesty's warships was always a hit and miss affair because they were never where they thought they were. :cool::cool:

[vecvechookattack]

The boys in the Lynx use a map and a dalton computer. The Dalton is particularly good when working out the PNR, CP and ROA....particularly when working them out towards and from moving waypoints.

The trick is knowing where the ship is going to be when you return from your sortie but there are ways and means to arrange an RV in the middle of the ocean. The Lynx Observers work would be helped if the aircraft had an integrated GPS system. Some of the aircraft do but sadly most of them don't and the Observer spends his day updating the nav kit from a stand alone GPS......much the same as people did in the olden days.

Hmmmmmm.

[Bo Nalls]

updating the nav kit from a stand alone GPS......much the same as people did in the olden days


Haaahaaahaaahaaaa :D:D

[anotherthing]

VecVechookattack

In my day (not too distant past), even GPS wasn't fitted . Good old TANS with a radar update if and when you could... on a chart covered with a piece of tracing paper to make the plot.

Frighteningly recent, and disturbingly similar (TANS aside) to what they used in the Swordfish at Taranto.

[spheroid]

and whats wrong with putting a piece of tracing paper over a chart and building the plot that way? it worked in 1956 so it should still work today. Please don't tell me that Lynx Observers are using plotting boards made up from maps and bits of tracing paper....thats not possible....can't be true....

[Impiger]

Remember the Nav Leader on my first squadron talking of how he'd gone UK to Nairobi in a Canberra B2 with nothingmore than a 12 stud crystal UHF radio. Seemed to work as he made it there and back.

Personally - I always used the force; except when it was even slightly tricky when I just instructed the nose gunner to follow the tanker (Victor K2 that is!):D

[Wigan Warrior]

Well, during training, this is the bible:

http://www.amazon.com/Theres-Map-My-Lap-Lrning/dp/0375810994/ref=sr_1_1/104-8050556-8101536?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199079255&sr=1-1

I know many colleagues whom still refer to it after many years operational

http://trus.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pTRU1-4165843reg.jpg