gow589

My Feedback: (1)

Jimmy Doolittle conducted the first blind take off and landing in an Army NY-2 Husky biplane in 1929. After that a navigation system called "Four - Course Range was developed. A dear friend and corner stone of aviation in my area passed recently. Cleaning out his things he had a large box full of Four Course Range maps and approach plates. Information on it can easily be searched. It divided 360° around a station into 4 quadrants. Each quadrant sent out a Morris code of either an A " dot-dash" or an N "dash-dot". Where these two overlapped in 4 different courses, the overlapping tones gave you a solid signal. You had to constantly listen to Morris code to follow your position. It was an extremely crude form of navigation. These maps were donated to local aero museum.

Afterwards came ADF and VOR navigation. ADF was extremely useful in the north where magnetic north was quite different than true north. Most people who learn to fly don't use ADF navigation anymore. Much of today's navigation is being replaced with large screens and visual maps. I am glad I grew up in a time when I was able to experience the more basic forms of flying. At the funeral, someone there gave me my ATP check-ride in the 80's. I reminded him that he was the SOB that gave me an ADF-ADF intersection hold on my ATP ride. He laughed. For you older pilots you can imagine the fun. For you newer pilots, program your flight sim with 2-ADF's and no visual maps and give it a try!