BOAC B707 ops in the 1960s

[Discorde]

I am researching background for a novel set in the mid-1960s. One of the (probable) characters will be a BOAC B707 captain. Some questions:

Did BOAC employ dedicated navigators in the mid-1960s or were nav duties carried out by pilots with Flight Navigator Licences?

Was LORAN the primary nav aid with astro as back-up, or the opposite? Did the B707 feature a periscopic sextant for star shots? If so, how did it operate?

On the North Atlantic was the current NAT system in use, with available tracks varying daily? Was longitudinal separation by Mach No the standard procedure? How many miles was lateral separation?

Did crews routinely contact the fixed-location weather ships for position reporting or weather info or use them for nav guidance (ADF bearings)?

Were supernumerary or cruise pilots usually included in the flight crew?

Did operation into JFK differ much from current procedures?

Where was BOAC's Crew Report location?

Thanks for info.

[Hobo]

Did BOAC employ dedicated navigators in the mid-1960s No or were nav duties carried out by pilots with Flight Navigator Licences yes?

Was LORAN the primary nav aid with astro as back-up yes , or the opposite? Did the B707 feature a periscopic sextant for star shots? yes If so, how did it operate? held in position by suction from diff cabin pressure-worked electrically.

On the North Atlantic was the current NAT system in use, with available tracks varying daily yes ? Was longitudinal separation by Mach No the standard procedure yes ? How many miles was lateral separation IIRC 60nm (?)

Did crews routinely contact the fixed-location weather ships for position reporting no or weather info no or use them for nav guidance (ADF bearings) sometimes ?

Were supernumerary or cruise pilots usually included in the flight crew no?

Did operation into JFK differ much from current procedures not materially?

Where was BOAC's Crew Report location South end of Terminal 3?

[4Greens]

Get hold of a book called 'The water jump' by David Beaty. Its all there.

[Discorde]

Thanks Hobo. How often were LORAN and or astro fixes required? Was there a separate nav station in the flight deck?

[snooky]

Gwyn Mulletts' book "with My Head In The Clouds" also makes mention of navigational procedures at the time. He was on the VC10 but it's all very relevant in an excellent read.

[Airclues]

How often were LORAN and or astro fixes required? Was there a separate nav station in the flight deck?

Fixes were required every twenty minutes. There was a separate nav station. On the 707 it faced sideways whereas on the VC10 it faced to the rear behind the captain.
The periscopic sextant was pushed through a mounting at the rear of the flight deck. A two minute 'shot' was taken of the star, This was done by keeping the star in a bubble using rocker switches on the side of the sextant. There were drums on the side of the sextant which would give the average reading over the two minutes.
Operations into JFK were different in the mid 60's as Terminal 7 had not yet been opened so we operated into what was then known as the International Terminal.
As far as I remember, the lateral separation was 120nm (perhaps an ATCO could confirm). On a bad night for Loran we were sometimes 20nm off track when we came into VOR coverage. I think that 60nm came in later but am happy to be corrected.
The nav would sometimes call one of the weather ships for a chat. They would always give us a bearing and distance as well as their position. On one occasion a weather ship asked us for our position. Apparently the sea was so rough that they had been unable to get an accurate fix.

[ExSp33db1rd]

I can confirm the answers given by Hobo and Airclues.

I joined BOAC in 1958 as a pilot, but was required to train for the Flight Navigator Licence, this started with 9 months classroom work to gain the Flt. Nav. exams, then flying training took place on the Boeing 377 "Stratocruiser" on West African Routes, and then I moved to the Britannia 312 flight, where I eventually gained my Flt. Nav. Licence tho' some went to the Brit. 102 and the Comet which were operating at the same time. Although initially rostered for the Brit. 312 East African routes, I eventually "graduated" to the Atlantic, flying to the USA and Canada, and the Caribbean.

In 1961 I was posted to the 707 fleet, to become P.3 /Nav. BALPA had negotiated an agreement that there should be 3 pilots on every flight deck, and BOAC decided to amalgamate the new Second Officer/P3 position with that of the Navigator, and being unwilling to re-train the older 'straight' navs. as pilots, my group were told that our move to co-pilot would be delayed, and eventually combined into navigation duties as well.

On joining the 707 fleet I was initially sent to Honolulu for 3 months ( times were hard ! ) to be navigator on the San Francisco/Honolulu/Tokyo v.v. sectors, and on return to UK was then sent for co-pilot training, after which I operated every flight as either the P.3./Nav. or the co-pilot (P.2) We normally decided between ourselves who would navigate "out" and who "home", and I almost never flew a trip solely as either one or the other after that.

During my time on the 707 I was appointed a Navigation Instructor and as well as introducing new young pilots to the Dark Art of navigation, in this role I was often rostered as one of the 2 navigators carried on the Polar Route to Anchorage, the Nav. Instr. being solely occupied in making frequent course checks with the sextant to assess the drift error and precession of the aircraft compasses before they were switched out of North seeking mode into Gyro Heading mode for the transit of the Polar Regions. It was during this time that I became proficient at Grid Navigation across the Pole.

I finally made my last flight as a Navigator in 1974, and was then promoted to 707 Captain, and shortly afterwards 747 Captain - where I had to forget all my Astro formula and start to learn about INS !!.

My recollection is that the last of the old "straight" navigators flew about 1962/3 tho' some of them were retained in the Nav. Office as check Navigators for our annual theory re-examination.

Although a fix by Loran, or ADF or Consol was required every 20 minutes, if navigating solely by Astro, as occasionally happened, then the requirement was extended to 30 minutes.

I'm sure the track separation was 60 nm. i.e. one degree of Latitude, but I have a recollection that was between aircraft of opposite direction, so that aircraft flying in the same direction would be 120 nm apart, but I could be wrong on that - it is some 45 years since I last had to do it !

It was a requirement to cross the ADIZ - Air Defence Identification Zone - around the USA within 10 nm either side of track, i.e. a 20 nm "window" at a specified point know as a "fish point" i.e. all the positions, which would now be known as "waypoints" were named after fish, and the one we used most when approaching New York was "Tuna".

The Weather Ships were of limited use for navigation, tho' we did use their NDB for bearings sometimes, and they were also occasionally able to give us a position from their radar, we mostly spoke to them to pass position reports, them having reasonable VHF reception as opposed to the more usual HF Comms. that we had to use.

The Captains rarely used the HF, leaving that unenviable task to the co-pilot, but one once offered to help his co-pilot by passing the 40 West position to Ocean Station Charlie, as that nearby ship was called. Unfortunately that particular gentleman had a bad speech impediment, and he stammered his message embarrassingly slowly .... Ocean Sttayshunn Cchchcharlie, this is is Speespeespeedbird 509 etc. and ended with Chchchcharlie diddid you cccopy?

A languid American voice came straight back with ....... jeez, did we copy, we’ve carved it into the f***ing deck !!

Sometimes the Weather Ships would ask to talk to the stewardesses, and I know that at least once they held a "Beauty Contest" amongst all the airline girls that passed by and spoke to them, and those girls willing to pass out their "Vital Statistics" were put into a draw, and the winner was given a trip to Boston, where the US Coastguard Base for weather ships was, and a few days sightseeing ( amongst other pleasures I guess ! )

A "bonus" of being made to navigate, was that BOAC contracted to keep ones' CPL valid, and as we weren't flying the "big" aeroplanes as co-pilots, they positioned a fleet of Chipmunk aircraft at Croydon, and we were allowed to turn up to fly up to 6 hours every 6 months at BOAC expense, so I have a passing interest in the Croydon Airport thread, as well.

I never wanted to be a Navigator, I was a Pilot for Crissakes, but now I'm glad I did and I occasionally wish I had a sextant to play with from time to time, it took a long time to become proficient, and I guess I could soon pick it up again, but it was very much a "hands on" art, and it is a shame that I no longer need it. Also, as a 20 something young man, there was a certain pleasure to be enjoyed in knowing that for a few hours over the Atlantic, you were the ony b*gger who ever really knew where we all were ! That sometimes needed a few fingers to be crossed tho', day trips to Bermuda when the Loran was down, and the only positive was an occasional single Sun line concentrated the mind a little - and the Brit. was occasionally below cloud - and I seriously considered Chichesters "find the Island" theory sometimes ! Happy Days.

Hope this helps, maybe I should write my own book !

[renfrew]

"From Flying Boats to Flying Jets" by Eric Woods also covers this period when navigators were disappearing.

[4Greens]

There is an ex Qantas Navigator still teaching bits and pieces at a Flying school in Sydney Australia. Taught me many moons ago and I passed first time.

[middlesbrough]

RAF Navigation

Slightly off thread, but I was an RAF navigator in the 60's, flying in Shackleton's out of RAF Changi. We carried out Search and Rescue duties in Gan, and so flew long sea legs across the Indian Ocean. Navigation was by mechanical airplot and single position line mpp's using a sunshot. Occasionally able to get a fix using a merpass. If the NDB at Gan was u/s, it was common practice to use " find the island technique", obviously track accuracy was not as stringent as the North Atlantic.

[ancientaviator62]

middlesbrough,
I assume the 'find the island' technique was a variation on the 'creeping line ahead' !We once 'avoided' Gan in a thunderstorm ! Well it did look like a cun nim on the EK290 .

[Brian 48nav]

IIRC when I joined CAA as a trainee ATCO in '73 the lateral separation on the pond was 120nms.


Also Eric Woods in his book mentioned above gave '63 as the date that navigators, as opposed to pilot/navs, were dispensed with.


I have no axe to grind as it happened while I was still at school and 2 years before I joined the RAF, but it seemed with hindsight a strange decision. Several of my pilot mates joined BOAC having worked hard to get their CPL/IRs etc and were immediately sent on a 6 month nav' course. The result was surely that, now having 3 pilots on the 707s and VC10s, the time to command must have doubled.


When those types went out of service in the late 70s lots of pilots were laid-off for 3 years while the backlog was worked through and presumably recruiting at the bottom must have stopped.


There was always a ready supply of trained professional navs leaving the RAF, I for one would have loved to join BOAC as a nav when I left the RAF in '73, even though the career may have only lasted until 1980( the date I believe BCAL went from navs to INS ). I bet the bean-counters at BOAC didn't have a say back then.

[middlesbrough]

Find the island technique

Gan was the southernmost island of the Maldives, so you made sure you were north of track, then before ETA you hoped you'd pick up the islands on radar, and you'd know which way to turn!

[ExSp33db1rd]

I assume the 'find the island' technique was a variation on the 'creeping line ahead'

No, Chichester set off for Norfolk Island en route New Zealand - Australia in a Fox (?) Moth with a hand held Marine sextant. He reckoned that if he tried to maintain the direct track he could end up somewhat North or South of the Island at ETA, and if he was way off, or in poor visibility, then he wouldn't be able to see it, so wouldn't know which way to turn.

He pre-computed the bearing of the sun that would pass through the island at ETA, then deliberately flew well North of the direct track, kept taking sun shots with his sextant until the bearing he had pre-computed came up, then he knew he was definitely North of track, so turned left and flew down the sun line bearing until he saw the island ahead. It worked.

I also know of a BOAC 707 Captain who flew across the Pole back to UK using two toothpicks stuck in two pieces of cheese, using a constant sun line - shadow of one across the other - and adjusting the heading every 20 minutes via an Astro sun line. A long story for another time !

[Spooky 2]

Polar crossings were certainly not common in the 60's as they simply did not make any sense from a flight planning point of view. I would be very suspect of anyone claiming that they they did polar crossings or even operations above 78 degrees. Yes, we did grid above 72 degrees as I recall?

Regarding the 707 Nav station which was in the aft left side of the flight deck you might recall the sighting stool which the Nav could stand on so as to get a better angle on the sextant eye piece. It normally stowed against the left aft wall. Also there was a drop down curtain to prevent light from the nav station expanding forward flight deck.

I spent about eighteen months as a 2nd Officer at Pan Am before the Bendix dual doppler and Edo Loran A took over and slowly displaced the Nav positions.

Good times for sure

[India Four Two]

A long story for another time !

ExSp33db1rd.
Now's the time, please!

I occasionally wish I had a sextant to play with from time to time

I'll bring mine ( http://www.celestaire.com/marine-sex...or-detail.html) when I fly up to the Bay of Islands next year and we finally get to meet. My first ever attempt at a position line was a lunar distance, after I had noticed Jupiter in close proximity to the moon, while walking back from the pub in Saigon! My LOP was 12nm out, which was pretty good I thought, considering the circumstances. I also used the sextant to observe the Transit of Venus in 2013, which was very special.

Concerning polar crossings, I remember reading about a non-stop Wardair 707 positioning flight in the 70s, from Gatwick to Honolulu. I recollect that the aircraft was towed to the runway before starting the engines and the go-no go calculations coasting out from Alaska were very meticulous. Does anyone have any details?

[Helen49]

ExSp33db1rd.


Fascinated by your nostalgic recollections........more please [or write the book}!

H49

[ExSp33db1rd]

Polar crossings were certainly not common in the 60's as they simply did not make any sense from a flight planning point of view. I would be very suspect of anyone claiming that they they did polar crossings or even operations above 78 degrees. Yes, we did grid above 72 degrees as I recall?

My log book records London – Anchorage 18th May 1970. My first Polar Crossing.

We flew NNW from London, and for the first few hours the Nav. Instructor would take frequent sun shots with the sextant, and compare the performance of the two compass systems that we had, Captain and Co-Pilot. One of the pre-flight checks was to ensure that we had two meticulously maintained gyros fitted, these were fitted to any aircraft making the Polar transit, the idea being that the maintenance given to these gyros would minimise precession due to friction on the various bearings and “innards”, this would become critical when we switched from magnetic reference to gyro steering.

Gyros maintain their heading in space, theoretically, but precess, i.e. drift off heading, for a variety of reasons, one of them relative to the present Latitude, and our compass controllers had a knob that could set the mid-latitude for the next leg between navigation fixes to correct for the Latitude factor of the total precession observed.

The Nav’s job was to compare the drift of the gyro relative to the Latitude correction that had been set whilst we were still using a North seeking compass function, hopefully zero error if the Latitude correction was accurate, but never say never, and eventually create a graph, similar to a deviation correction chart so that when we switched to gyro steering, not only could he select the next mid-latitude correction, but also apply an additional precession error that he had determined from his Astro observations on the initial part of the flight. Clever stuff, but you small aircraft pilots do apply compass deviation as well as variation to your computed tracks – don’t you, or do you just follow an iPad now ?

Approaching 66 North, the Arctic Circle, compasses were switched to gyro steering, and a Grid heading flown, determined from a polar chart with a Mercator type grid superimposed. If for instance the heading was determined as 330 deg Grid, this could be plotted on the chart and flown beyond the Pole, when one would actually be flying South by normal consciousness.

We actually flew between the True North Pole and the Magnetic North Pole, and apart from the fact that a magnetic compass was useless in that region, the rapidly changing angle between required track and the local Longitude was changing far too quickly to compute with the human brain and an E6B wind drift computer. Remember, this was before even Inertial systems, never mind GPS and iPads.

Where it all got a bit mind blowing was when Fairbanks VOR started to be received, one could be – for example – on the 020 (M) radial of the VOR heading towards it, but the Grid heading being flown might be 340 (G), i.e. one appeared to be flying North, but in reality was now flying South, and the VOR needle would be pointing behind the aircraft tho’ in reality one was flying towards it.

Please don’t pick me up on the nitty gritty of all this, it is 40+ years since I last did it, just think about it !

ExSp33db1rd.
Now's the time, please!

The cheese story ... leaving London one had many hours to sort all this stuff out, but out of Anchorage on the return sector one was thrown almost instantaneously into the Polar navigation exercise. I recall the “Grivation” i.e. a mix of Grid angle of the chart relative to True North, and the local Variation, was in the order of 174 deg east as we left Anchorage, which meant that if one applied it in the wrong direction – never say never – one could set off towards Siberia instead of Europe, very embarrassing. I used to calculate the Grid heading required, then give the available data to the co-pilot, and ask him to calculate it too, and if we agreed within a degree or two, then we would switch the compasses to Gyro and set off.

Company rules said that if there was any doubt as to the accuracy of the gyro compasses, then turn back. One Captain suspected such an error, but called for the cheese tray, cut off two lumps and balanced them on the windscreen coming and stuck a toothpick in each such that the shadow of one fell across the other, i.e. a sun position line.

Then he told the navigator to use the sextant to determine the True heading, and the consequent Grid heading to steer, turned the aircraft on to this new heading and re-arranged his cheese. Then he maintained that sun line for 20 minutes and repeated the exercise. He kept this up for about 2 hours until they were back into an area of normal compass operation, when they decided that in fact it was the co-pilots gyro which had been dodgy. I don’t think that they ate the cheese at that point.

When the stuff hit the fan because he hadn’t turned back, he said – the sun moves at 15 deg. an hour, by steering a constant bearing for 20 minutes, the most I could have been off the required heading was 5 deg. and that only at the end of the 20 minutes, as well. When we thought we had a problem we knew where we were, we knew where we were going, had we turned around and tried to re-establish ourselves back to Anchorage, we’d have been f***ed.

That Captain had been an RAF Coastal Command skipper in WWII, and they all had to be proficient on navigation as well as flying. I understand the theory but I doubt that I would have had the courage, and I’m glad that when I was a Captain I had the benefit of triple INS

Happy Days.

[4Greens]

Qantas kept Navs on long haul over the ocean sectors until we had triple INS.

[Georgeablelovehowindia]

Two-Two-One

OK, an easy question, the answer to which will add a bit of 'colloquial accuracy' to my old chum Discorde's book:

What was 'Two-Two-One' and why?