NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: The "big" sextant manufactures
From: Robert Eno
Date: 2007 Oct 29, 20:34 -0400
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From: Robert Eno
Date: 2007 Oct 29, 20:34 -0400
Greg is correct. Perhaps I need to re-visit my
comments. As a strong proponent of astro-nav, my hope is that it does not fade
into oblivion and end up as a quirky hobby for backyard navigators and
mathematicians. At best, it will serve as a back up system. At worst, well...for
the most part, people want the easy way out and short cuts. Time will tell if
the sextant will survive.
Even at that, I wonder can we realistically
expect that any further advances and design improvements will be made to
the sextant when the market may not be large enough to support such
R&D? I think not. And that is a pity. I often wonder what sextants
would look like today if GPS had not come along and more or less rendered it to
a back up position fixing system?
Robert
----- Original Message -----
From: Greg R.To: NavListSent: Monday, October 29, 2007 12:34 PMSubject: [NavList 3697] Re: The "big" sextant manufactures> GPS has pretty much rendered sextants obsolete.Some of us would probably (respectfully) disagree with that characterization, and re-word it to read "GPS has pretty much rendered sextants into a backup role". Maybe not the primary means of navigation any more, but still important for that day when the odds break against you and the electronic wonders decide to pack it up for the day (or the duration).And if nothing else, I like to think that whenever Murphy finds someone who's well-prepared and has thought out the eventualities/possibilities he goes looking for another less-fortunate victim to torment... ;-)--GregR
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