Originally Posted by
Hydromet
The best technology available at the time, in the hands of an expert.
Ah the joys of a survey flight.
Daily bread/ water/ fresh fruit / mail runs to the Decca engineers ashore so that they didn’t go short.
Setting up trisponder ( with the a/c as a slave station) ashore so that the Surveyors could “get control “ of the survey area. Usually involved dropping a couple of sailors off on a mountain somewhere with trisponder, cement mortar and white paint so that they could build a trig point.
And the joys of the ‘Canberra’ Williamson camera with the lens through a hole in the floor and the crewman hanging out the door trying to line up the grid lines.
When we had finished surverying the Jason’ Islands last surveyed several hundred years ago by, strangely enough, Lt Jason, they were found to be several hundred meters out. Not bad considering the kit they had !
All said and done, some of the best flying of my career.