Offset Navigation
from #456:
"Fercrissake, even the AirNZ board knew that Collin’s track went down the middle of McMurdo sound.
Board meeting minutes 5 December 1979
Quote:
“Strictly confid. Not to be used.”
Wreckage was “off track(considerably)...Aeroplane ...was left of centre.”
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This is from a witness to the data retrieval at Collins Avionics:
Basically, we established the flight path was not changed, the waypoints were not changed, the AINS-70 system was functioning per design, and the parameter data at the time of the crash was in the computer memory. That data, such as altitude, true airspeed, ground speed, heading, the points we were flying between, the inertial updated positions for each of the 3 inertial LTN-58's. Every thing that we found was in agreement with the DFDR data..
The most important point that I remember is that we established that no offset had been entered. As you remember, the offset feature allowed one to enter an offset of say 5 miles R or L of the track you were flying and you would continue to fly parallel to that track until you cancelled it. The data established no offset was involved.
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Again, they were flying 260 knots at 700 feet.
GB