Bergerie1,
You've described all those "lost art" processes beautifully. I guess Dopplers were much later, 707/VC10 era?
I only ever saw the LORAN used on the North Atlantic and I'm pretty sure once around Hong Kong. BKK - HKG when overflight of Vietnam was still off limits. Wasn't there a chain between there and Japan?
The Consol stations were remarkable. I seem to recall some of them (Stavanger and Quimper) were still operational in the late 70's maybe even into the early 80's. I think there was also a station in Northwest Spain or Portugal. Vigo perhaps? I only ever used CONSOL in real anger on a yacht. Weren't they invented/installed for the U-boats to navigate by?
Never flew with the Smiths system, but it always seemed to polarize opinion, people either loved it or hated it.
Happy days, still (thankfully) all a lot easier now and frighteningly accurate.
BSD.