NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Örjan Sandström
Date: 2013 Jan 13, 06:30 -0800
Paul, In places the dessert is about as featureless as the ocean, if this was such a place I can quite understand the need for celestial, actually it was frequently used in WWII, mainly by engineers and LRDG, LRDG (Long Range Desert Group) are "famous" for using celestial when navigating desserts, it was more or less only way to find the cashes of fuel/water/ammo... laid up.
I know only too well how frustrating "exact" position in featureless landscape can be, I frequently go skiing on the sea ice, only "features" guiding is "stationary" clouds, sun (if up) stars...
Yes i try keeping a decent DR, it does not take much of a compass and distance error to be out quite a bit after a trip of say 50km or more, main reason distance is so hard is that ice is NOT all flat and smooth, ridges and snow pushed into heaps by wind... and still no features to grab hold of and use to navigate, true a ridge can be seen for 5km or so, but few hours/days later it is buried in drifting snow or even gone (ice is constantly moving).
GPS is quite welcome assistance.
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