Situational Awareness WW2 - Sthn vs Nthn hemisphere
Thread Starter
Situational Awareness WW2 - Sthn vs Nthn hemisphere
Something I've long wondered.
During WW2, you had young lads from Australia and New Zealand shipped north to fly and fight in Europe.
And similar young lads shipped South to fly and fight in the Pacific below the equator.
How disorientating would it have been to have to fly and fight when the sun is in the wrong half of the sky?!
You've grown up with the sun in the North, suddenly it's in the South - you're flying a high performance fighter or light bomber and your life depends on situational awareness.
Or vice versa.
I have a very strong bump of direction, referenced to solar position and light - and always find when north of the equator I have to consciously remind myself that south is where the sun is.
It must have been potentially very disorientating at times, even with maps and compass.
Finished Rowland White's excellent book Mosquito - and thinking of those young kiwi guys at 50 feet, moving at over 300 knots with a couple of thousand horsepower under their left hand...!
During WW2, you had young lads from Australia and New Zealand shipped north to fly and fight in Europe.
And similar young lads shipped South to fly and fight in the Pacific below the equator.
How disorientating would it have been to have to fly and fight when the sun is in the wrong half of the sky?!
You've grown up with the sun in the North, suddenly it's in the South - you're flying a high performance fighter or light bomber and your life depends on situational awareness.
Or vice versa.
I have a very strong bump of direction, referenced to solar position and light - and always find when north of the equator I have to consciously remind myself that south is where the sun is.
It must have been potentially very disorientating at times, even with maps and compass.
Finished Rowland White's excellent book Mosquito - and thinking of those young kiwi guys at 50 feet, moving at over 300 knots with a couple of thousand horsepower under their left hand...!
Never found it a problem, at no time was I ever aware of where the sun was positioned, though might be a handy reference depending on the type of flying you do, mine was VMC. A 707 passenger was alert to the fact that they was off course, being a frequent flyer on the route, due to the sun not being in its usual position and was subsequently shot down by a SU-15.
https://www.historynet.com/kal-902-i...d-an-airliner/
https://www.historynet.com/kal-902-i...d-an-airliner/
I found it quite disorientating in FI on a ground job. Looking at the sun (when visible) it moved right to left as the day wore on. It took a couple of weeks to acclimatise it.
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It was the moon being upside down that I found odd, that and not recognising a lot of the stars
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I had a problem when first driving a car in the US, while on a sim course from Oz.
My sense of direction is very reliable - at home. I knew I had to go north from West Palm airport to get to the hotel, but my solar nav system hadn't been reset, so I turned the wrong way every time. It took a huge mental effort to force myself to go in the "wrong" direction to get to any desired target.
I have never had to operate an aircraft in the northern hemisphere, lucky I suppose.
My sense of direction is very reliable - at home. I knew I had to go north from West Palm airport to get to the hotel, but my solar nav system hadn't been reset, so I turned the wrong way every time. It took a huge mental effort to force myself to go in the "wrong" direction to get to any desired target.
I have never had to operate an aircraft in the northern hemisphere, lucky I suppose.
I had no problem with the Sun appearing in the North and moving the other way, I was expecting that. I was also expecting to see different stars and constellations. What really took me by surprise was seeing the very familiar constellation of Orion UPSIDE DOWN. I really did not expect that (though it's pretty obvious if you think about it...)
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How can the sun be different if the Earth is flat and the sun revolves around it?
When I moved to Texas one thing I noticed was how a crescent moon seems to lie on its back. The other was that I built a path on the north side of my house and wanted to have grass growing between the stones so went out and bought some seeds that were specially selected for shady areas. It came up a beautiful green, then quickly turned to brown and that was when I realised that unlike in England, the north side of your house in Texas will actually get sun ... lots of it too
Interesting question though
When I moved to Texas one thing I noticed was how a crescent moon seems to lie on its back. The other was that I built a path on the north side of my house and wanted to have grass growing between the stones so went out and bought some seeds that were specially selected for shady areas. It came up a beautiful green, then quickly turned to brown and that was when I realised that unlike in England, the north side of your house in Texas will actually get sun ... lots of it too
Interesting question though
The married quarters in FI were built with very nice conservatories - on the south side of the house!!
The NAVHARS got very confused in the southern hemisphere, having never been tested there. As a result, a radar update always gave an error of 360/999NM and if you accepted it, would update to the corresponding position in the NORTHERN hemisphere.
Oh how we did larf!
Mog
The NAVHARS got very confused in the southern hemisphere, having never been tested there. As a result, a radar update always gave an error of 360/999NM and if you accepted it, would update to the corresponding position in the NORTHERN hemisphere.
Oh how we did larf!
Mog
I'd think it would take awhile to get used to flying upside down all the time.
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it's pretty obvious if you think about it...)
How accurate is water just falling straight down the hole in determine the equator?
Thread Starter
Ha - very good thread hijacks!
Maybe doesn't matter so much in the era of GPS and children of the magenta line - which is why I wondered about WW2.
Momentarily confused Antipodean Sptifire pilot in Battle of Britain, or US Navy pilot in SW Pacific lost over the ocean...
Still can't find my way around London - Southbank is Northbank etc.
Maybe doesn't matter so much in the era of GPS and children of the magenta line - which is why I wondered about WW2.
Momentarily confused Antipodean Sptifire pilot in Battle of Britain, or US Navy pilot in SW Pacific lost over the ocean...
Still can't find my way around London - Southbank is Northbank etc.
In the 1960s/70s there was still a lot of WW2 expertise around in the Victor Tanker Force, these guys taught us from their experience about situational awareness.
OK, in mainly two dimensions.
We had a single G4B compass system which could precess at 15 degrees an hour with NO attendant bells or whistles. Only indication was a small window
on the repeater which should alternate between Dot and Cross, if working correctly. You tried to monitor this amongst all your activity.
If you were on a Transatlantic flight to the well known Paradise of Goose Bay, you would normally hit the Ocean at local noon. The Sun was due South of you
and your speed generally matched that of the Sun's passage over the Earth. So as you set off from overhead Stornoway the Captain (LH seat pilot) would
draw a Chinagraph (wax pencil) Circle around the Sun and alert the Navigator if it came out of the circle. We did ,of course check the Main and Standby Compasses
every 15 mins.
This gave me a great awareness of direction, which I still find usefull to this day.
OK, in mainly two dimensions.
We had a single G4B compass system which could precess at 15 degrees an hour with NO attendant bells or whistles. Only indication was a small window
on the repeater which should alternate between Dot and Cross, if working correctly. You tried to monitor this amongst all your activity.
If you were on a Transatlantic flight to the well known Paradise of Goose Bay, you would normally hit the Ocean at local noon. The Sun was due South of you
and your speed generally matched that of the Sun's passage over the Earth. So as you set off from overhead Stornoway the Captain (LH seat pilot) would
draw a Chinagraph (wax pencil) Circle around the Sun and alert the Navigator if it came out of the circle. We did ,of course check the Main and Standby Compasses
every 15 mins.
This gave me a great awareness of direction, which I still find usefull to this day.
Going back to Nav lectures in 1969, we were told of a case in WW2, or just after, in the RAF where a Nav training flight set off from Tripoli to fly due south for a hundred miles, do a 180 and return. Off they went, did the 180 and stooged back. At the subsequent enquiry as to why they had landed in the desert out of fuel, the flying crew mentioned that they had charts over the windscreen for the south bound flight to keep out the sun and no one thought to question why they needed to be still in place on the northern leg. Compasses and gyros were not that reliable in those days.
"I learned about flying from that"
"I learned about flying from that"
My father did his flight training in Australia in WW2 and then was shipped to Britain and flew for RAF Bomber command. He had a navigator and most of it was at night. Plus he had spent a fair bit of time on a ship travelling to get there so already acclimatised. Also they spent time being converted to type prior to starting combat ops. I figure in flight, it would not have been a big issue.
I do know that I tend to get disoriented on the ground in the northern hemisphere but have also seen it in a pilot I flew with who was from western Australia and first time flying on the Eastern seaboard who a few times said east instead of west and vic-a-versa because of the ocean being on the wrong side (according to him)
I do know that I tend to get disoriented on the ground in the northern hemisphere but have also seen it in a pilot I flew with who was from western Australia and first time flying on the Eastern seaboard who a few times said east instead of west and vic-a-versa because of the ocean being on the wrong side (according to him)
Never found it a problem, at no time was I ever aware of where the sun was positioned, though might be a handy reference depending on the type of flying you do, mine was VMC. A 707 passenger was alert to the fact that they was off course, being a frequent flyer on the route, due to the sun not being in its usual position and was subsequently shot down by a SU-15.
https://www.historynet.com/kal-902-i...d-an-airliner/
https://www.historynet.com/kal-902-i...d-an-airliner/
In one of his travelogues, Michael Palin had a demonstration from a guy in an equatorial country showing the water spiralling down a funnel in opposite directions either side of a line drawn on the ground that was allegedly along the equator. It was pretty clear that he ensured it spiralled in the correct direction by the way he poured it into the funnel.
It works well for weather systems, which is why equatorial regions are dominated by the Doldrums.
Coriolis is an illusion to us flat earthers!