Military Faux Pas...

[OneHungLow]

I suppose I could talk about the army lieutenant I knew who who took a star sight on the moon and then used the wrong tables in applying the lunar distance method of celestial navigation and ended up lost in the Namibian desert with his men for over 3 days, but that is nowhere as interesting as stories such as these:

Little lost Russian bomber...

[Boac]

I watched the video the other day, but could not understand how the system was supposed to work and how a 180 error on take-off would throw it, and as for the stupidity of the crew with a compass showing a 180 error for hours on end.............................

[OneHungLow]

I watched the video the other day, but could not understand how the system was supposed to work and how a 180 error on take-off would throw it, and as for the stupidity of the crew with a compass showing a 180 error for hours on end.............................

The missile carrier was equipped with a central navigation computing device CNVU-B-1a. It provided automatic continuous determination of the location of the aircraft in the orthodromic coordinate system by way of calculation and their periodic correction by radar direction finding of two identified radar landmarks, measuring wind parameters, programming the flight route, forming and issuing data to the optical sight to determine the moment of dropping bombs.

https://vk.com/wall-8826432_21706?lang=en

If I understand correctly, the Russian orthodromic navigation system is essentially based upon the principles of great circle navigation, which you are clearly very well acquainted with. I guess for this Russian navigation computer system to work, it needed to be correctly orientated relative to true north at the start of the flight. Taking off in a different direction to the pre-programmed great circle, effectively sent it off in a great circle, 180 degrees misaligned, i.e. in the wrong direction. As you say, a quick glance at the old whiskey compass, some local magnetic declination figure in the addled mind and the mumbled prayer " "West is best and East is least" and thus a rough idea of where magnetic north was should have alerted the pilot (and the hapless navigator) to their gross error. Instead they put their blind trust in their automation and flew on to ignominy.

The Great Circle (Orthodromic) Route
The word orthodromic comes from the Greek orthos, meaning “straight”, and dromos, “race” or “road” – hence this is the route that’s the straightest or shortest. Essentially it’s the arc of a great circle that joins two points on the Earth an imaginary line that splitting the planet into two identical halves. Vertically, each of the meridians would be a great circle, for example; horizontally, only the equator would be.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Perhaps we should remember that the standby compass was probably swung, like most other jobs, by a bunch of drunk conscripts, and that the Captain and crew would know this.

Remarkable about the coincidences of the turning points on the 180 track as well as the correct one.
Chap on the course ahead of me at Basic had a similar navex, with all the turning points apparently correct.
He returned to find a string of flying complaints awaiting him.
He'd entered low level through a (legal) gap in the clouds, and went round all his route about 4 miles SW of the planned route.
Since he was bimbling around Suffolk and Norfolk, and had chosen all his turning points to be railway level crossings, or chicken farms on disused airfields, it wasn't hard to find said features close to his incorrect track as well as on the planned track.

They sent him to choppers so he could read the road signs in future

[Boac]

Are you two suggesting that the pride of the Russian AirForce Bomber Command used an E2B in the cockpit as primary heading info? Have you both been drinking its contents? Do they not have a gyro based compass? Did nobody plot position as they flew along? Gosh - PN would turn in his growbag at the thought. Would taking off in a reciprocal direction to 'planned' cause all the aircraft instruments to malfunction? To be

correctly orientated relative to true north at the start of the flight.

shirley does not depend on taking off in the expected direction?

Much as I would like to join in the ribaldry I cannot see how this can be explained that way.

[CharlieOneSix]

......They sent him to choppers so he could read the road signs in future

One advantage of helicopters! When temporarily unsure of my position I will admit to have ducked down to look at road signs on a couple of occasions. The beginning of Helicopter Route H7 in the London CTR to Battersea Heliport began at Banstead Railway Station. It was not the easiest to find in the days of no area navaids and poor weather and some kind soul had painted 'Banstead' in large letters on the roof of the station. I see it's no longer there - must be a new breed of more competent helicopter pilots nowadays...although they of course have GPS.

Banstead.jpg (50.39 KiB) Viewed 2812 times

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Ah, Banstead Station..had a girlfriend down there once, used to use the station to get there.

Roof sign painters were less kind to fighter pilots in my day.

pob.jpg (43.47 KiB) Viewed 2807 times

[OneHungLow]

Are you two suggesting that the pride of the Russian AirForce Bomber Command used an E2B in the cockpit as primary heading info? Have you both been drinking its contents? Do they not have a gyro based compass? Did nobody plot position as they flew along? Gosh - PN would turn in his growbag at the thought. Would taking off in a reciprocal direction to 'planned' cause all the aircraft instruments to malfunction? To be

correctly orientated relative to true north at the start of the flight.

shirley does not depend on taking off in the expected direction?

Much as I would like to join in the ribaldry I cannot see how this can be explained that way.

I am a plastic E6B navigation computer set against a GPS provided North kind of guy, and you old RAF E2B codgers can stick with your rusting metal compasses no matter which way they swing or have been swung, but no ribaldry intended.

E2B.JPG (59.59 KiB) Viewed 2780 times

I was apt to say the Russian computer navigation system under discussion clearly needed to be orientated correctly at the the outset and that the system did use a gyro compass but that they didn't necessarily need to orientate it with True North but could set set it against against a pre-agreed virtual North that best served their flight plan and the angles needed to give the optimum, most accurate on route triangulation using radio aids to allow a very accurate Great Circle track. I am guessing that they used the departure runway direction as the basis for this orientation but one dozy navigator set the Virtual North datum point (i.e. reference point for the gyro compass) 180 degrees out of whack and thus the saga began!

Virtual North.JPG (27.65 KiB) Viewed 2802 times

As long as every body agrees on a fixed datum with which to set and use a gyro compass, who cares about the magnetic one. vide. how these systems work in space (in 3 dimensions, gimballed of course), North in space being the datum that allows alignment with well know stars to ensure "an ever fixed mark" to misquote Shakespeare.

[OneHungLow]

Ah, Banstead Station..had a girlfriend down there once, used to use the station to get there.

Clearly your Banstead babe was the ever fixed mark!

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Well, she could quote Shakespeare...and Betjeman

Very 'Joan Hunter Dunn' country down there, "The scent of the conifers", etc.

[OneHungLow]

Well, she could quote Shakespeare...

[OneHungLow]

Well, she could quote Shakespeare...and Betjeman

Very 'Joan Hunter Dunn' country down there, "The scent of the conifers", etc.

Furnished and burnished in the midday Aldershot sun!

You villain you!

[Karearea]

"Take me, Lieutenant, to that Surrey homestead!"

*complete thread drift*

[OneHungLow]

"Take me, Lieutenant, to that Surrey homestead!"

*complete thread drift*

Navigation, like life and love is pure poetry Karearea....

And some drift should always be allowed for on a navigation orientated thread!

[OneHungLow]

......They sent him to choppers so he could read the road signs in future

One advantage of helicopters! When temporarily unsure of my position I will admit to have ducked down to look at road signs on a couple of occasions. The beginning of Helicopter Route H7 in the London CTR to Battersea Heliport began at Banstead Railway Station. It was not the easiest to find in the days of no area navaids and poor weather and some kind soul had painted 'Banstead' in large letters on the roof of the station. I see it's no longer there - must be a new breed of more competent helicopter pilots nowadays...although they of course have GPS.

Banstead.jpg

Of course they might have been battling flapping 1:500:00 charts, and recalcitrant ex-Lightning flying... Oops.

All said in jest gentlemen!

[CharlieOneSix]

Not a military faux pas but in 2020 under the thread heading of "There are those who have done it - and those yet to...." I posted the story of the Sikorsky S61 crew who took off from a North Sea rig bound for Sumburgh and to their surprise they went to Bergen instead.....

viewtopic.php?p=241454#p241454

[OneHungLow]

Not a military faux pas but in 2020 under the thread heading of "There are those who have done it - and those yet to...." I posted the story of the Sikorsky S61 crew who took off from a North Sea rig bound for Sumburgh and to their surprise they went to Bergen instead.....

viewtopic.php?p=241454#p241454

There are worse place to come from than Bergen I guess.

My great grandfather came from there, and ended up as a whale killer in Walvis Bay in SWA!

Flying to Bergen from the cold North Sea, or vice versa, on a wild night must be something to talk of.

With respect to you blokes who flew there.