Nav Planning Tools - Old Style
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Nav Planning Tools - Old Style
Clearing out the loft today I found an old Nav Planning Template I'd scrounged back in the 70's. I Never got to use it at 360 Kts let alone 540 Kts ... in fact I just wanted a "neat" way of drawing Heading & Height Boxes for 90 Kts on the Chipmunk !
I guess these days the need to mark-up fablon covered Topo Maps with chinagraph pencil has long been replaced by PC based planning tools
Just covering the bl**dy map, wrinkle free, in fablon was an art in it's self !
That said ... outside the standard Douglas Protractor, Perspex Nav Rule and the Dalton Wiz Wheel ... did anyone use other official/unofficial nav planning tools pre the computer age ?
I did hear a "story" once of an F4 Nav who could plot with a Mars Bar and chinagraph on his knee boards !
Might make an interesting thread ...
Best ...
Coff.
I guess these days the need to mark-up fablon covered Topo Maps with chinagraph pencil has long been replaced by PC based planning tools
Just covering the bl**dy map, wrinkle free, in fablon was an art in it's self !
That said ... outside the standard Douglas Protractor, Perspex Nav Rule and the Dalton Wiz Wheel ... did anyone use other official/unofficial nav planning tools pre the computer age ?
I did hear a "story" once of an F4 Nav who could plot with a Mars Bar and chinagraph on his knee boards !
Might make an interesting thread ...
Best ...
Coff.
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Yea, and quite unofficially. A piece of string with 3.5 nms per minute markers for a 1/4 mil chart. About 2.5 hrs long! Threw it on the chart, fixed one end to the TAP and 'rubberbanded' it to the POD for the length of sortie (usually 1.5 hrs). By now you will have guessed the ac.
Worked very well in the UK flying at 210 IAS, adjusted for W/V to fly 210 G/S. I shudder to think what the BOI would have said - illegal use of parcel string. Oh hum!
Worked very well in the UK flying at 210 IAS, adjusted for W/V to fly 210 G/S. I shudder to think what the BOI would have said - illegal use of parcel string. Oh hum!
That planning template was a godsend, must have been designed by someone who actually knew about the job!
String! Just decide the scale and you can do so much! Avoid stretchy string though!
OAP
String! Just decide the scale and you can do so much! Avoid stretchy string though!
OAP
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The only one for Fast Jet jockeys has to be the "Brady Rule" designed and made by Roger Brady (ex Flt Lt). This got many a mate through TWU at Brawdy, Chivenor and Valley before being invaluable on the following OCU and Front Line.
A couple of years ago, I was helping a mate write a presentation for a speech he was to give. He produced his fablon covered map of the 5th Division of Sarawak, Borneo and the whole of Sabah and Brunei. Apart from the coastal area and some well known settlements or spot heights - Batu Lawi for example at 6600 feet amsl - the map was mostly blank.
Lines had been drawn on the map between many of the more frequently visited LZs. Along each line was written just three sets of figures. These recorded heading out, heading back and time to run at 90 knots: nothing else! With experience, the more enterprising marked on the fablon, things like visible river bends, prominent trees - there were millions of others - and anything else which would act as a route check. Perhaps the most important was the line of the Indonesian border.
No templates for plotting or for anything else - great fun when you're 21 but the excitement quickly wears thin when one accepts one's own mortality!!
Old Duffer
Lines had been drawn on the map between many of the more frequently visited LZs. Along each line was written just three sets of figures. These recorded heading out, heading back and time to run at 90 knots: nothing else! With experience, the more enterprising marked on the fablon, things like visible river bends, prominent trees - there were millions of others - and anything else which would act as a route check. Perhaps the most important was the line of the Indonesian border.
No templates for plotting or for anything else - great fun when you're 21 but the excitement quickly wears thin when one accepts one's own mortality!!
Old Duffer
On the same vein as Old Duffer. In Borneo if you were flying from one area marked 'Relief Data Incomplete' to another marked 'Relief Data Incomplete' for the first time the trick was to do a 360 degree turn half way there.
Then you knew what the scenery should look like coming back.
Then you knew what the scenery should look like coming back.
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I used mine recently but not much use for a turning circle nowadays. Apart from the archaic PPL tests Sky Demon makes it just a tad old school.
Last edited by Geehovah; 18th Nov 2012 at 20:30.
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Keep it coming chaps ... the more unofficial the planning aid the better
AirPolice ... I've just clocked that a "rogerbrady" is a PPRuNer ... or was in 2004 ... It would seem there is a low speed version. I haven't tried the eMail address mentioned. The Web URL appears to be defunct
Brady Rulers
Cheers ...
Coff.
AirPolice ... I've just clocked that a "rogerbrady" is a PPRuNer ... or was in 2004 ... It would seem there is a low speed version. I haven't tried the eMail address mentioned. The Web URL appears to be defunct
Brady Rulers
Cheers ...
Coff.
Last edited by CoffmanStarter; 18th Nov 2012 at 22:07.
The string thing was an absolute winner for formation split tac navs in RAAF helicopter days.
You'd mark your string (non-stretchy, of course) in nil-wind minutes at 90 kts (using 1.8km = 1nm) and from then on the exercise area was your oyster - pick a split and an RV point, then lay out the string in whatever squiggly path took your fancy, marking the minutes out on the route with chinagraph ('Contact' covered map - I guess that's the same as what you blokes call fablon?).
Then, keeping the start and end points of the string in place, move it to make another route of exactly the same length - easy to see the crossing points / conflicts, if any, and very very simple to work back from a time-on-target.
As good as a computer any time, if not better than, I reckon.
You'd mark your string (non-stretchy, of course) in nil-wind minutes at 90 kts (using 1.8km = 1nm) and from then on the exercise area was your oyster - pick a split and an RV point, then lay out the string in whatever squiggly path took your fancy, marking the minutes out on the route with chinagraph ('Contact' covered map - I guess that's the same as what you blokes call fablon?).
Then, keeping the start and end points of the string in place, move it to make another route of exactly the same length - easy to see the crossing points / conflicts, if any, and very very simple to work back from a time-on-target.
As good as a computer any time, if not better than, I reckon.
Last edited by Arm out the window; 18th Nov 2012 at 23:14.
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The string thing
I see a possible commercial opportunity here for a bloke like me on the breadline.
if I cut a number of lengths of string (non-stretchy of course) and mark each of them up for appropriate speeds and map scales, would you blokes buy them from me? I could attach a bunch of different scaled strings to a single handle for convenience. Then the blokes in the sandpits could also use it as a fly swat. I am being serious. Honest.
if I cut a number of lengths of string (non-stretchy of course) and mark each of them up for appropriate speeds and map scales, would you blokes buy them from me? I could attach a bunch of different scaled strings to a single handle for convenience. Then the blokes in the sandpits could also use it as a fly swat. I am being serious. Honest.