NavList:

Gary,

What a great post, thanks for taking the time to detail how to use Polhemus in the Southern Hemisphere. The images help a lot.

When I first saw a Polhemus, it really looked intimidating. But after playing with it for a while, it's layout is quite simple. You do have to pay close

attention to the signs of corrections, however.

I'm not a pilot (flew sailplanes for a while) but I'm fascinated by the way celestial navigation was/is practiced up in the air.

It's much more complex than methods practiced by boaters or historic land explorers. So many variables to deal with. And higher speeds necessitated short-cuts and pre-computation. And too, there are the subtilties of using hand-held and periscope bubble sextants and all their corrections as well.

I'm surprised that when I talk to air-nav people who had practiced cel-nav, none had heard of the Polhemus Celestial Calculator. Perhaps this was only used by the Air Force and while not a classified device, it wasn't broadly promoted.

Again thanks for the response,

Popko