We used celestial navigation on the 130's, C-141's, C-5's, B-52's, KC135's, KC -10's, and B-1's Just don't use it in the smaller fighters... and puddle jumpers... Most aircraft now have a triple inertial system and gps backup... and an AWAC's bird some where in the area... Of course that was in the 70's and 80's...
"Tell me thrice." Yeah, dunno 'bout surface ships then and now, but we depended on two of the three SINS binnacles to agree before we surfaced to confirm what we thought we knew about where we were.
Basics do mater. Capt Al Haynes passed away today. Talk about using the basics. UA 232, Sioux city, 1989. Lost hydraulics after engine rotor disintegrated. Lost One hundred plus passengers. Saved almost two hundred.
If there ever was a man who never said quit, it was him. He had a lot of luck, but most of it he made, last I heard, no one in a simulator flying the same conditions had ever made it over a few minutes before spinning in. Him, Sully, some of the other older pilots who came up the old way did things that are unbelievable, now who have pilots who turn into a dead engine on take off, crash aircraft in stall when pitot tube freezes up, crash trying to fight some safety feature in the auto pilot or auto throttle, and on it goes. The ultimate irony is the cockpit recorder playback has the crew going threw the manuals, or trying to figure out what to do right up to the end.
think they made a "Movie for TV" movie about that crash - covered the whole pre-crash period of time found it - 1992 -
