Most civilian Flight Navigators,
including those within AIR NEW ZEALAND
had retired or were made redundant by the early 1980s
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Nowadays, many will be unaware that the final demise of the role and status of Flight Navigators became inevitable following the introduction of Doppler Radar Navigation
Doppler navigation was in common commercial aviation use in the 1960s
(until it was largely superseded by inertial navigation systems.)
The equipment consisted of a transmitter/receiver unit, a processing unit and a gyro stabilised antenna platform.
The antenna generated four beams and was rotated by a servo mechanism to align with the aircraft's track by equalising the Doppler shift from the left and right hand antennas.
A synchro transmitted the platform angle to the flight deck, thus providing a measure of 'drift angle'.
The ground speed was determined from the Doppler shift between the forward and aft facing beams. These were displayed on the flight deck on single instrument.
Some aircraft had an additional 'Doppler Computer'. This was a mechanical device containing a steel ball rotated by a motor whose speed was controlled by the Doppler determined ground speed. The angle of this motor was controlled by the 'drift angle'. Two fixed wheels, one 'fore and aft' the other 'left to right' drove counters to output distance along track and across track difference.
The aircraft's compass was integrated into the computer so that a desired track could be set between two waypoints on an over water great circle route.
It may seem surprising to 21st. century readers, but it actually worked rather well and was great improvement over other 'dead reckoning' methods available at the time.
It was generally backed up with position fixes from Loran, or as a last resort sextant and chronometer.
It was possible to cross the Pacific with an error of a couple of miles when in range of a couple of VORs or NDBs. Its major shortcoming in practice was the sea state, as a calm sea gave poor radar returns and hence unreliable Doppler measurements. But this was infrequent on the Pacific
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Malcolm Forsyth was the only one these Navigators to succeed and he went on to finally retire as a B747 Captain.
Another five of the redundant Navigators, Harry Butterworth, Colin Church, Brian Grimwood, Bill Mulder, Twiggy Schmidt and Ian Rankin aspired to the other option available to them, that of being retrained as Flight Engineers.
Another five of the redundant Navigators, Harry Butterworth, Colin Church, Brian Grimwood, Bill Mulder, Twiggy Schmidt and Ian Rankin aspired to the other option available to them, that of being retrained as Flight Engineers.
AIR NEW ZEALAND's Management, along with the good will and cooperation from their professional Flight Engineers (which included a 1971 agreement with their FLIGHT ENGINEER'S union the NZIMPE, ) generously undertook the formidable and challenging task of retraining the majority of these redundant Flight Navigators to enable them to continue with their flying careers but in their new role as Flight Engineers.
(Who could have foreseen these guys having to face yet another round of redundancies following the total demise of the role of Flight Engineers in June 1999?)
These were the AIR NEW ZEALAND Flight Navigators who eventually went on to become FLIGHT ENGINEERS.....
Heares, Peter
Kennedy, Kevin
Mulder*, Bill
Nunney*, Syd
Pope, Larry
Rankin, Ian
Schmidt*, Twiggie
Thompson, Gordon
(Who could have foreseen these guys having to face yet another round of redundancies following the total demise of the role of Flight Engineers in June 1999?)
These were the AIR NEW ZEALAND Flight Navigators who eventually went on to become FLIGHT ENGINEERS.....
| Butterworth, Harry Church, Colin Cobb, Bill Foster, John |
| Grimwood, Brian |
Kennedy, Kevin
Mulder*, Bill
Nunney*, Syd
Pope, Larry
Rankin, Ian
Schmidt*, Twiggie
Thompson, Gordon
This page has been added to http://flight-engineers-air-nz.blogspot.co.nz/ to provide an avenue for our ex Flight Navigators to record and preserve their history...
The challenge now to each of them is to contribute suitable material to make this webpage worthwhile.
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Brian Grimwood has promptly responded to the challenge and contributed his input....
Recognition at last!
On the Sunderland, the only items of any use were the sextant, the
drift sight and the Air position indicator (marked VSC) in the picture.
The
twin ADF ‘s above it weren’t much use outside a couple of hundred miles because
we general flew around at 1500ft. and the Loran set on the right of the photo
was only put in if we flew north of the Equator (which was rare) and I had very
little success with it anyway.
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| RNZAF Sunderland MR.5 |
 |
| Sunderland Nav Station |
 |
| Sunderland Drift Sight |
The Astro compass (shown is the one in the
Devon) was used to check compass deviation and could also be used as a bearing
compass though we also had a hand held magnetic bearing compass.
 |
| RNZAF Devon Nav Station |
 |
| Devon Astro Compass |
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Any GOOGLE search will pull up heaps of links to websites containing interesting information on the topic of the role and the demise of the Flight Navigator.
This FAA Flight Navigator Handbook is a large 70MB .pdf file and will take a while to download, however it is ideal "Refresher Course" reading.
For other examples go to.....
Aviation History—Demise of the Flight Navigator
REMEMBER THE AIRLINE NAVIGATOR
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| FAA Flight Navigator Handbook |
This FAA Flight Navigator Handbook is a large 70MB .pdf file and will take a while to download, however it is ideal "Refresher Course" reading.
For other examples go to.....
Aviation History—Demise of the Flight Navigator
REMEMBER THE AIRLINE NAVIGATOR
