Vintage Navigation Aids

[wrecker]

I wonder if anyone can answer a question posed over dinner the other night. When did the aids such as
1 Aural Range ( I remember using Dunsfold range in the 60s)
2 Consul
3 Loran A
4 Decca
That's the trouble when you get old pilots around a table with a good bottle of port!

[chevvron]

No 2 is Consol not Consul (that was an aircraft built by Airspeed). They named a whisky after the one in Northern Ireland. That (Bushmills) and Stavanger were still in use early 70s.
A controller at Border Radar called Ray Selkirk reckoned he used to fly from the old Sunderland (Usworth) airfield (now the Nissan factory) to Stavanger by following one of the 'radial' beams, mind you counting the dots must have been a bit time consuming!!
No 4 DECCA nearly had a revival in the mid 80s when someone produced an LCD display which gave you a lat and long position, then suddenly GPS happened. Don't know if any DECCA chains are still radiating but they might be used for nautical purposes.
No 3 I think the US coastguard still maintain some LORAN stations.
No 1 MF Radio Ranges. Not got much experience of these as they were all withdrawn in I think, the late 60s.

[JW411]

Ray Selkirk; now there is a name from the past. is he still above ground?

[10 DME ARC]

Ray - Again blast from past no not above ground I am sure I saw his obituary in Sunderland Echo a few years ago. What he couldn't explain about Nav aids and Roman settlements on the back of a beer mat wasn't worth knowing!!
And yes he used to fly out of Usworth in the 70 & 80's I am sure he once flew with his mate, a mad Icelandic chap, direct Sola in a AT115 Airtourer of all things!! Probably using DECCA as the North Sea was covered by stations.

[Lordflasheart]

Consol - previously "Sonne"

See here - Consol navigation system (http://www.radarpages.co.uk/mob/navaids/consol/consol1.htm)

We used Consol from time to time in the early '70s as part of the grand panoply of antique navigation aids available to BOAC transatlantic 707 and VC10 flights - just to demonstrate that we could count.

Also required to demonstrate skill in the use of Air Plot and Circum-zenith fixes before being awarded "real" Nav Licences. I've probably still got the Consol CAP somewhere. Please pass the port. LFH

[wrecker]

I stand corrected with the spelling of Consol.
I remember running an air plot flying south down 16W using position lines from Bushmills, Quimper ( Ploneis) and Lugo Consol stations to update the wind vectors. Also using a Decca MK8 set having departed Gibraltar for Bathurst (now Banjul) and running out of cover just south of Rabat with many hundreds of miles still to go!

[Chris Scott]

Hi wrecker,
"I remember running an air plot flying south down 16W using position lines from Bushmills, Quimper ( Ploneis) and Lugo Consol stations to update the wind vectors."

Lagos, perhaps? (From memory it was 'LGS' on 364 khz - err, kc/s.)

[Fareastdriver]

The Stavanger consol was still operating in the eighties. Th Aerad had the frequency and the dot code. Kept oneself occupied doing groundspedd checks from Aberdeen to the Shetland Basin.

[Offchocks]

Ah this brings back memories, I remember using Consol flying Aberdeen to Sumburgh plus night freight to Amsterdam in a DC3 in the early 70s. When I tell FOs this they look at me in a strange way ...... what you didn't have a FMC?

[Philthy]

Info about VAR and other naiads here: Airways Museum / Civil Aviation Historical Society (http://www.airwaysmuseum.com)

[Flightwatch]

If I remember correctly “LG” was Lugo, on the northwest tip of Spain. I used Consol in the late 60’s when on scheduled service LHR-BIO and vv. Leaving the VOR at Nantes the airway was a direct line to the Bilbao NDB. The latter was good and strong but on days with heavy Cb activity it didn’t point well and on the HS748 (Particularly the srs.1) we didn't have the height to stay in range of the VOR for long, so we had consul charts to ensure we stayed within a reasonable distance from the airway centre line.

[alisoncc]

Real pilots went everywhere just using NDB's and a E6-B. Do NDB's still broadcast their station callsign in morse? That's if they are still around.

[Chris Scott]

Quote from Flightwatch:
If I remember correctly “LG” was Lugo, on the northwest tip of Spain.

Yup, I remember it now. Sorry, wrecker, you were quite correct. :O

[evansb]

Yes, there are still plenty of NDBs around, and yes, they broadcast their ident in morse code. Not many form airways anymore, so most are relegated as compass locators and approach aids. Perhaps in ten years (or sooner) they will all disappear..

[thing]

and approach aids. Perhaps in ten years (or sooner) they will all disappear..

Hurrah...:D:D:D

[wrecker]

Once again regarding Consol I always thought it was known as "Lorenz" and was designed to be used by the U-boats in the Bay Of Biscay. There was also a station at Stavanger which along with Quimper were in occupied land.

[Croqueteer]

The Navs on the Shack sometimes used Consol when the radio op had nothing better to do. You did have to know broadly where you were in the first place.

[Offchocks]

designed to be used by the U-boats

That is what I was lead to believe as well.

[Dan Winterland]

Yes it was. Transmitting on MF, it followed ground waves so was very useful at sea level. The Stavanger Consol station was the last and it was still transmitting in 1990.

Aural Range went out in the 70s I gather. (Too young to have used it!)

DECCA died in about 2000 as it was considered that GPS had effectively replaced it. I actually bought one of those digital DECCA receivers. In the late 80s, the price had come down to a few hundred pounds and it was good for the time, but a bit clumsy to use. DECCA was first used operationally in the D Day landings where the boats used it to accurately plot a course along the channels cleared in minefields.

LORAN still exists. It was going to be killed off, but it has been enhanced and the new standard is E-LORAN. The signals are stronger than GPS and less prone to jamming and interference. Combined LORAN/GPS sets are now available.

[Dan Winterland]

Someone mentioned Lorenz. The name Lorenz actually refers to the electronics company which made many things including an encryption cipher machine in parallel with the much more famous Enigma machine. Lorenz were the manufacturers of Sonne (Consol) and an adaptaion of Sonne formed the basis of Knickbeim, the German WW2 bombing aid. Lorenz also made the Lorenz beam landing aid, which was the first of it's type appearing in the mid 30s.

[oxenos]

"Lorenz also made the Lorenz beam landing aid, which was the first of it's type appearing in the mid 30s."
Precursor of I.L.S., and used a similar system of two overlapping beams. Whereas I.L.S. had a display, the left/right of centreline was aural. No glide path, descent was done by starting a steady descent when passing a marker.

As regards Sonne, I have read (either R.V. Jones book, or a book "Aircraft vs. Submarine" by Alfred Price) that once it had been established what it was, plans were being made to destroy the transmitters. When the senior navigation officer of Coastal Command heard of this ( by chance, and at a late stage) he asked, successfully, that they be left in operation, on the grounds that they were more use to Coastal Command than the were to the Germans.

I remember that in the mid 60's, we still had on the Shack charts with a Consol overlay printed in them so that a position could be plotted directly, without all the nause of doing convergence corrections

[Talkdownman]

European Consol stations:

Bushmills 'MWN' 266 K/cs
Stavanger 'LEC' 319 K/cs
Ploneis (Quimper) 'FRQ' 257 K/cs
Lugo 'LG' 285 K/cs
Seville 'SL' 315 K/cs

[reynoldsno1]

Used to use Consol on Varisties lumbering out of Finningley in the early 70's, the charts were printed in a very pretty 40's style. Decca letdowns were also common in the Dominie, as ISTR one of the lines was virtually straight and passed through the airfield. It was very good from about 90nm out, provided there was no lane jump ...:cool:

[Pom Pax]

I often wundered why this station had 2 names which seemed interchangeable or combined. The combination is simple Ploneis is a hamlet in the district of Quimper. The single name uses are are a bit different, I have just found a web site (http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=70&t=205986) which suggests that Quimber and Ploneis were separate stations. Quimper being the original German Sonne 6 and Ploneis is a replacement. The 2 sites appear to be about 8 miles apart.

[MarkerInbound]

The last A-N range that I know of was shut down in early 1980s in Saltillo Mexico. When Jepp said to pull it from the manual, I stuck the chart away. I'll look it up when I get home.

[BEagle]

In the 1970s, Puddy Catt was flying the RAF's last Meteor F8 to an airshow in Europe...

"Report the XXX VOR"
"Sorry, don't have VOR!"
"OK, sir - report the XXX NDB"
"Sorry, don't have ADF!"
"OK sir, squawk XXXX and ident"
"Sorry - no parrot. Not even an egg!"
"Sir - what navaids do you carry?"
"I'm talking to you on it!"

Some Air Trafficker once asked me what navigation system we used to route to the entry point of the Lichfield RVC. "We use a FUNS", I told them. When asked what a FUNS was, I replied "Food-powered Universal Navigation System - and he's sitting 2 feet behind me!".

I started off with Rebecca / Eureka in the Jet Provost, plus UHF/DF. A year later, offset TACAN in the Gnat seemed like space age magic in comparison!

[Talkdownman]

._ ._ ._ ._ _____∆_____ _. _. _. _.

[PTR 175]

I am surprised no body has mentioned Omega. The first world wide radio nav aid.

The only thing on a Nimrod that never went wrong

[ICM]

Omega? In the context of this thread, hardly a Vintage Navaid - indeed it wasn't fitted to the VC 10 till after I'd finished. That said, its very mention here serves to point up how things have moved on in the last 25 years or so.

Personally, I'm more taken aback by having learned the trade in the mid-60s on the Varsity, somewhat less well equipped than Halifaxes and Lancasters at the end of WW2, in that we had no H2S.

[reynoldsno1]

Omega. The first world wide radio nav aid.
...and now withdrawn ... unlike Loran!! :hmm:

[eckhard]

European Consol stations:

Bushmills 'MWN' 266 K/cs
Stavanger 'LEC' 319 K/cs
Ploneis (Quimper) 'FRQ' 257 K/cs
Lugo 'LG' 285 K/cs
Seville 'SL' 315 K/cs


Wasn't Stavanger (LEC) called 'Varhaug' as well? The NDB is still there; I used it yesteday!

I used to have an old NAT plotting chart from 1970 which had Consol and Loran lines printed on it.

What about the long-range version of Decca; Dectra?

[Spooky 2]

There was a Consol station just north of San Francisco. I believe it was deactivated sometime in the early 70's. We would occasionally use it when coming back from Hawaii or Japan in the 707's

[Lordflasheart]

As Spooky 2 says - San Francisco 'SFI' plus Nantucket 'TUK' - known as Consolan in the USA

As Talkdownman says for Europe -

Plus Andoya 'LEX' - Bjornoya 'LJS' and Jan Mayen 'LMC'

and for USSR - on Novaya Zemlya 'KN' and Provideniya 'RB'

LFH

[LXSQ]

And he flew it to the USA too. It's all in his memoires - not yet in print, but we live in hope.

[Talkdownman]

I remember John Townsend teaching us all about Gee, too...

[Discorde]

The Atlantic weather ships could also offer bearings and distance according to some posters on another thread. Here are two excerpts of an Atlantic chart dated May 1970 which shows many of the nav aids referred to in previous posts.

NA west (http://steemrok.com/NA%20west)
NA east (http://steemrok.com/NA%20east)

[Pass your message]

Saw this recently.... V early navigation !
http://sometimes-interesting.com/2013/12/04/concrete-arrows-and-the-u-s-airmail-beacon-system/

[Exnomad]

No mention of Rebecca-Babs. Used that in 1952-3 . Homing on Gee accurate, fly down a postion line, if one happens to line up with runway. One did at Aldegrove

[Discorde]

An apocryphal story that might have originated in BEA's Highland & Island service:

Practising VDF letdowns, the R/O would get the QDMs from ATC and pass them on to the pilots. One R/O allegedly would look out of the window, note current a/c position and pass on a QDM based on his observation without bothering ATC.

[greybeard]

In our patch, NDBs are not being installed any more and not replaced when time exed.
Australia had its own unique DME relying on a signal from the A/C to excite the station to reply and measure the time etc.
Stations were limited to the number of A/C they could handle which at the time was not a problem.
The VAR was lots of fun in a DC-3, which was slow enough to be able to stick with the aural null.
One was at Kalgoorlie, visuals to Perth and reverse to Forrest, Aural to Norseman and Laverton, favourite route check stuff.
There is more power in my GPS than the entire DC-3 navaids of the 60s, but not as much fun to follow.
memories are some times better than the actual in many things!!!

:ok::ok:

[wanabee777]

Concrete Arrows & The U.S. Airmail Beacon System (http://sometimes-interesting.com/2013/12/04/concrete-arrows-and-the-u-s-airmail-beacon-system/)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c2/Transcontinental_Air_Mail_Route_Beacon_37A.jpg/330px-Transcontinental_Air_Mail_Route_Beacon_37A.jpg


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/Indian_Mounds_Park_Airway_Beacon.jpg/330px-Indian_Mounds_Park_Airway_Beacon.jpg

[Whopity]

Omega. The first world wide radio nav aid. Omega was an idea stolen from Decca who designed the first Worldwide nav aid called DECTRA. This combined the principles of the Deca Navigator, originally designed by Bill O'Brien an American who could not persuade the US to build it, and LORAN C. The Decca Navigator company successfully sued the US Govt for $46,000,000 in 1976.

[seacue]

When I was first repeatedly going to Melbourne, Florida, on my project (1970s), there was a tower near US Highway 1 in downtown Melbourne that I'm sure was once part of the airways system. It was aligned along the JAX - MIA route. It vanished shortly thereafter.

[sapperkenno]

So these concrete arrows used for the US airmail beacon system... Did they only point one way, and you flew the route back against the arrows, or were there separate outbound/return routes?!

[Spooky 2]

It's been a long time, but I recall seeing one of these arrows pointing northward somewhere close the Mormon Mesa VOR which in turn is north of Las Vegas on a route between Las Vegas and Cedar City, Utah. I also recall seeing and using the lighted airway between Daggett and Las Vegas back in the vey early 60's.

[dash7fan]

An other vintage Navaid:


http://i1322.photobucket.com/albums/u562/dash7fan/BILD0609_zpsmeglsnva.jpg?t=1449135728

[Dora-9]

Greybeard:

Re your post (#40), I was seconded from Ansett to Malaysia in 1972; whenever someone there perused the Instrument Rating part of my licence the inevitable question was: "what's a VAR?".

[greybeard]

Dora-9, we are really showing our age, but I miss those days more than the latter years of automation.

:ok::ok:

[wanabee777]

OK, I give up.

What is a VAR???:confused:

[clunckdriver]

"Visual Aural Range" Whilst flying in Oz we used them a lot, North/South legs were mostley visual, very much like a fixed card VOR left/right presentation, East/West were aural for the most part and were basicly the same as a low frequency range signal , {or was it the other way around?} Still have my lic with the VAR endorsement typed inside.

[Dora-9]

My memories of the VAR's in WA (at least) were that the E/W legs were visual, and the N/S legs aural. But then again I'm using that potent word "memories". Greybeard?

[greybeard]

Visual E/W and Aural N/S was the way of Kalgoorlie

Visual to Perth and Forrest
Aural to Norseman and Laverton (or Leonora?)

Good route check stuff for me from Norseman on the aural.

I think there was another in the NT and some on the East coast which were different as the prime routes had the Visual.

My time on the DC-3 did not send me too far afield, they were stopped in June 1968 anyway except for the occasional freighter which luckily came my way from time to time

I found an Australian DME unit in my box of memories, all 12 channels of selection!!!

:ok:

[IFPS man]

Re #35.
Was that JT from The College Of Knowledge??
Andy I man

[India Four Two]

Saudi Aramco World : Flying the Furrow (http://www.aramcoworld.com/issue/200102/flying.the.furrow.htm)

[Pom Pax]

Even earlier on the Nullabor Night Beacons (http://www.petan.net/aviation/nb.htm)

[Flybiker7000]

Some threads are virtually articles wich is interessant for a noob as Me to read through and this is clearly such one.
I knew about the Decca-system, however I thought it was a sole Danish invention for the Danish Northsea fishermen, but now I know better, and this together with the several other electronic guidance-systems!

But it became an anticlimax that the story should end with the tale of Yellow concrete arrows ;-)

[Fareastdriver]

Exnomad
Vintage Navaids

No mention of Rebecca-Babs. Used that in 1952-3 . Homing on Gee accurate, fly down a postion line, if one happens to line up with runway. One did at Aldegrove

It wasn't you that crunched the BABS van with a Halifax mainwheel, was it?