Back to Celestial

[SaltyMonkey]

Time to get off entitled arses and use a brain.

US navy returns to celestial navigation amid fears of computer hack - Telegraph

[Adelie]

Good to see they've finally realized our risk.

If they were smart they would try and salvage what they could of the LORAN system and get it going again. GPS is about $1B/yr to maintain. LORAN was $35M/yr, cheap as a backup and a lot more secure in certain ways.


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[FamilyVan]

Its very odd that they stopped in the first place. There are so many fundaments that a navigator would never appreciate without a solid understanding of celestial navigation. I'd be curious to know if any other navies of the world stopped teaching celestial navigation to deck officers.

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[Simonsays]

that was 35M/yr in the 60s though. so *20 by todays standards if not more.

i applaude the notion of teaching celestial navigation again but i doubt the application.
when I was in the Navy, i learned how to use a Sextant, we had one on board and we took it out of it's box...

drumroll...

once in 4 years.
because the jury rigged brand new (hey it was 97 and we just got one..) GPS Antenna had failed and we were in the middle of the Indian Ocean and got bored.

in order for celestial navigation to work, you have to practice it regularly else the result is a definite maybe.

@FamilyVan afaik the German and British Navy never stopped teaching it, practice is another story from my experience.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by Simonsays

that was 35M/yr in the 60s though. so *20 by todays standards if not more.

No that was $35M/yr was what I recalled from when they shut it down.

The 5yr savings from the 2010 OMB report said $190M or $38M/yr. all the capital costs have been amortized, at that point it was just staffing and maintenance.


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[FamilyVan]

Simonsays, the study of celestial navigation goes beyond fixing your position though. That's where you learn the fundaments of applied spherical trigonometry, how to plot and understand great circle sailing. Even the circular LOPs created by TD satellite navigation are learned in celestial navigation- so many things are learned.

I agree about the need for practice, if you dumped me in a life boat with a sextant, nautical almonac and Nories nautical tables I doubt I could fix my position, but the fundamental lessons served me well even in the world of electronic navigation right up until the day I moved ashore.

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[MarkJ]

Sorry, which navy now directs missiles with celestial positioning ? Maybe dead reckoning too...?

Deck officers have more things to learn than semaphore morse code and smoke signals no matter how romantic the notion

[Lepke]

Loran A & C were not world wide. Mostly in the northern hemisphere where US warships operate and land was available for the towers and equipment. It was not available in the deep ocean. It's accuracy using sky waves (far from the tower) was about equal to stars. About the time gps got cheap enough for civilians to use, the Navy was working on replacements (Omega, etc.) for Loran, but shelved them for gps. Loran A came about in WWII to enable bombers to bomb thru overcast. The towers and equipment were scrapped long ago. A practiced sextant user can get a fix within a mile when on a stable ship.
For a long time I have been advising people to have more than one way to navigate. Former navy trained navigator.

[capt-couillon]

Still got a sextant on board and try to take a noon shoot every day offshore to stay in practice. If the nice electronics give it up, I still got a pretty good idea where I might make landfall. Course that assumes I have some paper charts and a pencil onboard.

[Simonsays]

Originally Posted by FamilyVan

Simonsays, the study of celestial navigation goes beyond fixing your position though. That's where you learn the fundaments of applied spherical trigonometry, how to plot and understand great circle sailing. Even the circular LOPs created by TD satellite navigation are learned in celestial navigation- so many things are learned.

i doubt the theory fundamentals got ever dropped by any naval school but that is like taking Math 101 at colleague.
practical application on the other hand had become a footnote by the time i served (late 90's)
and who is to blame when it is easier to measure the distance to a Lighthouse by laser instead of a sextant and fixing the postion is just done for documentation because the fleet dictates course and speed outside of terrestrial navigable waters.

[Simonsays]

Originally Posted by Lepke

Loran A & C were not world wide. Mostly in the northern hemisphere where US warships operate and land was available for the towers and equipment. It was not available in the deep ocean. It's accuracy using sky waves (far from the tower) was about equal to stars. About the time gps got cheap enough for civilians to use, the Navy was working on replacements (Omega, etc.) for Loran, but shelved them for gps. Loran A came about in WWII to enable bombers to bomb thru overcast. The towers and equipment were scrapped long ago. A practiced sextant user can get a fix within a mile when on a stable ship.
For a long time I have been advising people to have more than one way to navigate. Former navy trained navigator.

the british DECCA covered most of the areas not covered by LORAN, in parts overlapping but with the same issues on high seas

DECCA Coverage Chart:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._locations.svg

it was scrapped around 2000 for GPS.

another former navy trained navigator.

[farm sail]

Originally Posted by Simonsays

i doubt the theory fundamentals got ever dropped by any naval school but that is like taking Math 101 at colleague.
practical application on the other hand had become a footnote by the time i served (late 90's)
and who is to blame when it is easier to measure the distance to a Lighthouse by laser instead of a sextant and fixing the postion is just done for documentation because the fleet dictates course and speed outside of terrestrial navigable waters.

Actually the USA had dropped all reference and training including theory. In fact the only " return to celestial " that has been added back is a 3 or 3.5 hour class on theory. That is a long way from " going back "

[jreiter190]

On my ship, every day at sea, sextant was used. Every day. I took LORAN A readings every hour of every watch and learned to tell sky waves from ground waves. Instead of using the interpolation tables, I used a chart with the LORAN stations printed on them and a pair of dividers. When you get a five LOP pinwheel fix, it's mathematically impossible to be incorrect. This was in Japan, Phillipines, China and Vietnam. No offense intended

[Hydra]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

Sorry, which navy now directs missiles with celestial positioning ? Maybe dead reckoning too...?

In fact, ballistic missiles (ICBM) are directed with celestial positioning and inertial navigation, which is a high-level sort of estimated navigation (measuring accelerations and integrating twice with respect to time, to obtain the course made good).

Alain

[Simonsays]

Originally Posted by jreiter190

On my ship, every day at sea, sextant was used. Every day. I took LORAN A readings every hour of every watch and learned to tell sky waves from ground waves. Instead of using the interpolation tables, I used a chart with the LORAN stations printed on them and a pair of dividers. When you get a five LOP pinwheel fix, it's mathematically impossible to be incorrect. This was in Japan, Phillipines, China and Vietnam. No offense intended

that is awesome.
i wish i did have the time to do that or the Nautical Officer ordering to make the time.
instead i even got people ordered off for general duty when there were charts to correct leaving me to do that on my own and my staff to learn how how to clean a hallway you already could eat from before they started instead of navigation.