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Well, I don't know that you can call it "reckless" since Chichester's
deliberate offset navigation procedure became the standard navigation
method for finding islands and was taught to thousands of navy and air
corps navigators during the second world war. It was actually a just a
modern implementation of the centuries old method of latitude sailing,
approaching to one side of a destination, east or west, and then
following the latitude LOP to the destination.

See the texts I have posted on my website at :

http://www.geocities.com/fredienoonan/

Go to "List of topics" then to "Single LOP landfall procedure."

gl

On Jun 10, 5:19�pm, "Christian Scheele"  wrote:
> Hi Douglas,


>
> thanks for the post on Chichester.
>
> Is it difficult to get the Observer's Book No. 4? It would be good to know.
>
> I only have 1 and 2 (bought them for Rand 10 (!) each at a second-hand book
> shop), no. 3 I have on loan, saw it once on ebay, but did't buy it. I have
> some hunting ahead of me.
>
> I also have "The Lonely Sea and the Sky" (Rand 15 used). Pointing out his
> plane's engine problems you say he was reckless. I don't really think I'm
> qualified enough to judge his decision to navigate using a (his?) method iof
> setting a new course at a precomputed D.R. position an hour before E.T.A. on
> both islands on the basis of a sun-shot, but pretending I am for a moment,
> I'll say it was the riskiest and bravest planned navigation feat of those
> epic flight days. Perhaps it was reckless. I mean, his sun shot of course
> gave him only a position line, or rather, an assumed position line. If a
> pilot is looking for an island the size of Norfolk or Lord Howe, it makes
> for a hair-raising scenario.Chichester writes in the same book something
> like "turning �90 degrees over the middle of the ocean after flying a single
> course the whole day, each minute before sighting land seemed like an hour."
> An understatement, we can be sure of that!
>
> Ending on lighter, if perhaps not very complimentary note to the great man,
> I just flew from the north-tip of New Zealand to Norfolk and then Lord Howe.
> Wait for the punch line: On Google Earth. At an altitude of about 100m, only
> using the "compass", ignoring the coordinate indicators. Actually, I missed
> both islands.
>
> Christian Scheele
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: 
> To: 
> Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 8:21 PM
> Subject: [NavList 8608] Re: A-10 Sextant Manual
>
> No... sheer coincidence. �Chichester the City on teh South coast of Britain
> and Sir Francis Chichester have no connection that I know of. �I actually
> live in Bosham which is 3 miles SW of Chichester; �but Chichester is the
> closest city for anyone wishing to know my approx location in GB.
> ------------
>
> Francis Chichester became famous here in GB for his solo circumnavigation of
> the world in his fine yacht Gipsey Moth IV, �and for which he was knighted
> with much pomp and circumstance in 1966. He stopped once in Sydney in the
> circumnavigation.
>
> This is very irritating to those who know it took much longer for Sir Robin
> Knox-Johnstone to become recognised and knighted (in 1995) ...and without
> the media interest and pomp and ceremony afforded Chichester, �yet he was
> teh first to sail non-stop and single handed �around the world in his boat
> Suhali in 1969!
>
> Similarly the unknown fruit and vegatable merchnt Alec Rose from Portsmouth
> circumnavigated the world too a year later after various misfortunes made
> him unable to start until a year after Francis Chichester though he wanted
> to start at the same time, and he became knighted only after the world press
> took an interst in his personal achievement as a pensioner with a passion
> for single-handed long distance sailing who made it through grit and
> determination to complete the circumnavigatoin in hs relatively poorly
> equipped boat compared to Chichester.
>
> His flight from New Zealand to Australia across the Tasman Sea in a Gypsey
> Moth float aeroplane in 1931 is much less well known but is by far the most
> amazing navigational feat for which he received the Johnston memorial Trophy
> for Navigation in 1931. � In my view it was an astonishing achievement
> requiring great courage and determination, but was nevertheless utterly
> foolish and reckless in a single engined aeroplane which already had engine
> problems with compression and valve troubles. By accounts he was a strange
> irrascible man but very determined.
>
> It this flight and its description which made me very interested in the
> Bygrave slide rule.
> It is described in his book "The Lonely Sea and the Sky" �first printed
> 1964; �in Chapter 11 'The Tasman Sea'.
>
> He also describes the flight from Norfolk Island to Lord Howe Island in some
> detail, with an accompanying chart in �"The Observer's Book on
> Astro-Navigation" �Part four.
>
> These Observer's Books were published from 1940 and during the war to assist
> the navigators recruited into the RAF. �Chichester wanted to be a pilot but
> the RAF excluded him from operational flying because of his poor
> eyesight(needing glasses) for which he was very discontented and bitter. He
> was an instuctor of navigators.
> In the Observers books he describes himself also as Air Navigation
> Specialist, Henry Hughes and Son Ltd. .. which ties in with the description
> given to me by the gentleman who gave me the sextants who worked at Henry
> Hughes.
>
> There were four of the Observer's Books on Astro- Navigation; I have copies
> of them here.
>
> I admire Chichester's navigation exploits very highly, but do not admire the
> man by all accounts of him.
>
> Douglas Denny.
>
> Chichester. England.
>
>
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