Transport Fleet Astro Nav
 

I'm teaching a marine navigator the aeronautical way of computing and shooting astro, does anyone have any old copies of the 3 shot night proforma or the day proforma sculling around?

Hi Vasco - check your PMs

BS, thanks.

VS.

I found that on a trans atlantic yacht voyage that celestial shot precomputation doesn't work. With a marine sextant you take the time of a successful sighting and work the whole thing backwards remembering that "deck height" is a factor and atmospheric refraction is constant. .

Thanks Dougie. I need to find a route burglar who has some forms sculling around in the bottom of an old Nav bag in the loft/garage/cellar* delete as appropriate! Not much call for astro on para wedge or even HALO.

Rgds, VS.

I remember a being on a Hastings crew heading south over Biscay. The crew had, for a reason I forget, 2 engineers. The nav., had briefed the engineer to read the API when he gave him a friendly kick half way through the sun shot.

The nav gets into the dome with the sextent, and half way through the shot kicks the engineer. Alas some few mins., before the relief engineer had assumed the seat and was pissed off that he had just been kicked.

‘what did you do that for Nav?’

‘take the readings – take the readings man’

The engineer takes the fuel gauge readings and at the end passes them to the nav……

Turns out we were somewhere over the Sahara

After an early VC10K trip to Akrotiri, we were enjoying a delicate little glass or few of brandy sour in the bar, as you do, when the nav instructor saw that it was a clear and starlight night. So he collared the student nav and off they went to the jet to do that weird astrology thing with a sextant and various mysterious almanacs and complicated forms.....

Which would probably have been OK, had they not enjoyed quite so much brandy sour beforehand. After much peering through the sextant and mysterious scribbling, student nav proudly came up with the lat/long of their location.

500 miles due east of Moscow! At which they repaired back to the pub and sorted out the errors on a couple of bar chits before we decided it was time for a kebab run.... "Chris - taxy for 10 to the Swan please!" "No sir, you go my place and I give you free kokinelli". Top chap!!

Then there was the frustrated Nav who threw himself at the ground and missed!

Hilarious! Not.

For Vasco

I have blank Astro forms - from my Herc days. For some reason I have a Nav log dated 23Oct91 for a flight Lyneham - St Johns. Why I kept them I don't know - probably to save the Loran charts that were used.

Please send me a message how I can scan them and e-mail them to you

Rgds Fed-Up (aka 'lofty')

Astrology 🤣

Routing Dakar to Ascension on a dark old evening the Nav headed for his sextant and started the mantra. Some time later, from the rear of the flight deck, was heard the sound of paper being screwed up and the comment, "Well, that was a waste of f'kin time!". Funny on its own but even funnier hearing it twice more as we followed a wobbly NDB south through the ITCZ.

Flying ASI to MPA in 1987/8, only useful navaid on the Herc was Omega, one of the aerials for which was/is in Argentina. To check on this the nav took a sun line every 30 minutes. So as the rest of the crew slumped into a bored coma, the nav worked quite hard. Just to help, at the time the flight was normally scheduled for, the sun appeared directly behind the refuelling probe, so the aircraft had to turn 30 degrees off heading while the shot was taken.