Next message: Fred Hebard: "Re: Averaging"
Alex-
Some years ago I spoke to someone who had been a B52 navigator, pre-GPS,
relying on sextant. They routinely did 48+ hour patrols, airborne with
nuclear weapons. (Up to 54 hours flight time was not unusual.) He mentioned
that one trip "north" (i.e. Arctic duty near Siberia) wx had been so bad
for so long that when they finally crossed the US coast somewhere in
California, they were supposed to be about 400 miles north. But as far as he
was concerned, that got them back to base only an hour off schedule and
given the wx and the duration, that was literally good enough for government
work.
Don't ask me about inertial nav or other options...I have no idea why but
sextant and DR were his only tools on that run.
Apparently the B52's also had a navigator's "viewport" set in the top of the
fuselage aft of the main cabin, until a refueling accident happened. A
refueling boom bounced aft, smashed the navigator's viewport resulting in a
navigator being literally sucked out of the aircraft. In later models of the
B52 (including the current one) that port was sealed over with a metal
plate.
The provision for a sextant periscope was, as I understand it, separate from
that viewport.
