I’ve no additional info that would answer your question. But it sure looks like it’s an archaic thing. The 23 that still exist are probably on life support. I knew one. He did it in C-130’s. The Marine Corps was the only service that used Enlisted as Navigators. This guy changed to being a Controller. Funny story out there. Navigator tells pilot to turn 2 degrees left. Pilot says we can’t do turns that small. Navigator says ok, turn 7 degrees left. Pilot says ok. Navigator says now turn 5 degrees right.
You just have to have the right friends. There are at least a handful of them out there.
When I showed up to Millington, my name was 1 of 7 that qualified for C-130 navigator. Gave us the night to decide. It’s strange, when I signed, I was all about going navigator but I changed my mind and stuck with ATC. Enlisted navigator used to be the highest washout out rate (50 %) in the Marines. Right up there with Force Recon. Heard the school closed back in 2004.
I met one other Marine Navigator at the FAA Academy when we were instructors there in 2007. At sometime he went ATC also. Not that it would have made any difference to you, but do you know if there was an exemption to the 21 year old rule for Military Navigators like there was for CTO for Military Controllers?
Same for the 50 “satisfactory” celestial sightings required before the checkride?
Ya thinkin’ of actually doin’ it or just getting some more ‘wallet candy.’
IRSs. ??
Barry Schiff wrote a good article about pressure pattern navigation in one of his regular columns. I’ve got it a book collection of his. It’s fascinating how simple it is and that it works!
Don’t recall an exception to the age requirement.
B-52 and B-1B still uses Navigators, there used to be two positions in the B-52, Navigator and Radar Navigator/Bombardier. They may be "Bombardiers" or "Offensive System Officers" or "Weapon System Officers", but they wear the USAF Navigator Wings and rating. I used a sextant in Celestial Grid Navigation in the B-52G. When I transitioned to the B-1B, there was no sextant, no sextant port and no GPS receiver. It all relied on radar navigation updates to the internal navigation system (INS) dampened with a radar derived drift meter.
you might get some good sighting practice, you probably wouldn’t be able to triangulate enough for a “satisfactory” position, and I suspect there would be enough refraction and/or differences in refraction to compromise accuracy.
In the Navy us TacAir guys got zero exposure to cel nav. We sent all the prop guys to the USAF to learn it at Mather. We did a lot of DR though!
Inertial Reference System
NOAA would send their navigators to use the Mather simulator so they could get qual'd. The simulator had an astrotracker like the FB-111 used for their cel shots. I acquired a B-52 sextant similar to the one that we used in the T-43. I also have an antique marine sextant from late 18th, early 19th century.
Not sure what that link lead to other than a discussion of using it. The one I read is chapter 23 of The Proficient Pilot Volume 1.Inertial Reference System
This? (PDF)
Also found someone who tried to do it for a 300nm cross country in a PA28
Pressure Pattern Navigation -
www.avcanada.ca
As I get into this my god have mercy on any future private pilot student I might end up with ha!
Just got a AN5851-1 sextant that’s in dang good shape
Fixin’ to replace the battery and maybe bulb with something more modern, still got a good bubble and gears are smooth
I’ll see what she can do, my understanding is if you’re within 5 miles you’re doing just fine. I read the old domes had some refraction too, same as a modern jet window, not sure.
