Some of the earlier "monochrome" weather radars of the 1950s and '60s could be used for estimating drift, by showing a smearing of the ground returns a few degrees port or starboard.
Radar map reading was simple if you read the ground returns to see if they cast a "shadow" - think of a searchlight on the ground under your aircraft, rotating, leaving the shadow behind a hill or a building. (At Kano it was possible to see both the old and the new terminals, on the 25(?) mile scale.)
PS The weather radar map reading was only done at heights well above the ground.
I have mentioned earlier the inquiry held because the York a/c taking Olympic athletes to Helsinki in 1952, had confused two NDBs with very similar call signs OJJ and OJY where the transposing of the DOT and DASH of the final Morse letter was... just too easy to do, MANUALLY. And it was made even easier by having adjacent frequencies.
Last edited by Jetdriver; 27th Sep 2013 at 01:33.