Half Memory after 35 years
From: David Pike
Date: 2014 Dec 21, 13:58 -0800
I mentioned earlier about being almost thwarted by an eclipse of the Sun. I checked my log book. On 26th Feb 1979 we flew from Waddington, England to Goose Bay, Labrador. I know it was 26th, because most of the nav gear had died half way across because of a hot air leak in the port wing, and we didn’t get a replacement aircraft to continue to Offutt, Nebraska until 2nd March. I was rather keen to get a Sun line because of the lack of Doppler and HF and anything on the radar, so I was slightly cheesed to witness only half a Sun. I shot it anyway, and it seemed to work out OK. I checked on Google, and sure enough there was an eclipse of the Sun on 26th February 1979, so I probably didn’t imagine it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_February_26,_1979#mediaviewer/File:Solar_eclipse_animate_(1979-Feb-26).gif . Two things don’t fit in with my memory. As we were flying westwards and the eclipse was travelling eastwards, it should have passed more quickly, not tried to chase us and the time is wrong. We normally left UK about 10.00 UTC and got to Goose in time for lunch, so unless we were delayed for some reason, perhaps I did imagine it. It’s funny about the date being the 26th though. Any explanations? Dave
Re: LHA listing by the minute, looking for.
From: David Pike
Date: 2014 Dec 21, 01:57 -0800
An interesting aspect of this is that the speed of the sun is about the same as a Vulcan flying westwards at M0.84 (480kts) at around 40,000 at around 55N. This meant that on trips from UK to Goose Bay you often had the same figures coming up in successive astro calculations. I seem to remember it also worked against us one day when we were followed for some time by an eclipse of the sun. I’ll try and find the date in my logbook so some keen fellow can check if I’m imagining things again.
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