NAVWORLD
QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER - THE NAVIGATOR
VERNAL
EQUINOX March 20, 2002
ION
ACTIVITIES
Visit
http://www.ion.org
58th
Annual Meeting
June 24-26, 2002 - Albuquerque, New Mexico
GPS
2002
September 24-27, 2002 - Portland, Oregon
SECRETS
OF THE SWALLOWS
Near the vernal equinox each year the “Swallows of San Juan Capistrano” return to the mission and city of that name ending their flight from their winter (summer in the southern hemisphere) home in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Two theories are offered for the punctuality of the swallows in the yearly return at “Secret of the Swallows” at the link Navcerebrations.
THE
WORLD IN JEOPARDY
See Which Way Did They Go? and The Planet Clonezy under Navcerebrations
I first noticed a vivid graphics introduction to the NBC Evening News depicting the world rotating backward in the early ‘80s. Most of the viewing audience would not have noticed this erroneous portrayal. A quick check can be obtained by using the right hand rule holding the right hand horizontal with the thumb erected upward with the fingers curled, the thumb symbolizes the North Pole and the curled fingers symbolize the counterclockwise rotation of the Earth. The NBC graphics depicted the Earth rotating backward - clockwise from East to West. Thus the Sun would appear to rise in the West and set in the East in such an erroneous portrayal (in reality the Sun is stationary and the Earth rotates counterclockwise West to East). My correction to NBC of this form of “geo-idiocy” was met by a letter from their public relations director. Her explanation was this was the way the Earth appeared from Space Shuttle (one was suppose to infer that a reversal of the Earth’s rotation appears to an observer on a space vehicle that orbits the Earth counterclockwise approximately every ninety minutes-sixteen times faster than the Earth’s rotation giving the illusion that the Earth rotates backward). I thanked her for this private disclosure and artful dodge (but the viewers were not on Space Shuttle) and willingness to share this “secret” with me. Finally NBC’s Tom Brokow apologized to the viewing public for this erroneous portrayal of the Earth‘s rotation. Then I noted that “Jeopardy” opened with a panel of globes all rotating backward. The globes were inscribed with latitude and longitude arcs (unmistakably representations of the Earth). Years later, “Jeopardy” shifted to a non representative mottled ball that was replaced by a black ball as an introduction continuing to rotate clockwise. Today this ball (now blue and motionless) reposes at the foot of the program’s podium.
Other prominent companies,
shows and organizations also portrayed the Earth’s rotation in reverse on
television or displays and included Intel (who acknowledged the error with
embarrassment and planned to correct it in the future), ATT (claimed the
erroneous portrayal emphasizing the bulge of the Earth represented calls and
faxes originating in the US and going to the rest of the world for creative
purposes. In the future ATT would flip the film), BBC’s Michael
Thalen in his modern treatment of Around
the World in Eighty Days , Allen Bohbot’s Amazin’
Adventures (works better in animation- according to Allen Bohbot - rights
holder), Universal Studios Florida (featured a rotating globe with
the name “Universal Studios” on
its equator -couldn’t be read if rotating correctly was the
reply), Union 76 globe (which was enshrouded with an Earth painted on its canopy for conveying global dominance.
Responded with in the future
the Earth would be imparted with the correct rotation - hardly
likely without reversing the mechanical gear train drive), New York Life
(claimed that its terrainless world was intentionally rotating backward because
a man (not shown) had lost his job, . Vons’ Markets and Chrysler Rose Bowl
(ironically an education theme) floats
in 1992, Apple Computer Performa promotion in 1992, NBC Blossom show promotion
in 1993, NBC Extra TV promo in 1997 et al.
LAST
B-29
Our friend Ted Graser has
another favorite anecdote to share
with us. “Well the Korean war was over and there were three wings of
B-29s in the Asiatic theater, the 19th, 98th and 307th. SAC was
converting the present B-29 wings into B-47 wings and these three were last on
the schedule. I was going through crew training at Randolph my CP was a Naval
Academy graduate, Don Jensen the pilot was a former copilot on B-36s who
although a WWII type had never been overseas. We were a happy bunch especially
when we found we were going to Biggs AFB
upon graduation. Ah this changed as some one else wanted Biggs and he had a
little pull so we got his assignment Yokota AB, Japan.
“After survival school and
such, off we went to Yakota and we loved it, the 98th was a high flying outfit
it was great. Then the 19th was sent home. Next the 98th was sent home and they
traded their new crew (we were selected) with one of the 307th old crews for a
home go. Down to Okinawa and the 307th, we went knowing we would be going home
soon.. We got
there in late June and languished as the test hop crew as we had no training
requirements. Then in August we got the word we were going home in the fall so
Mary, my fiancee, and I made wedding plans for the
of November 6th figuring
that was a shoo in. Things dragged on and we changed the date to
Nov. 13th and sent out invitations.
“Now the wing in its attempt to make the final days seem important had
a competition to see what the “home go” sequence would be. Would you not
know it but our squadron came in last and the 372nd was just that. I wrote Mary
and said change the wedding to Nov 13th.
Now the games began. Since our unit was the last and would furnish
the last crew, someone finally recognized that it would be pretty
historic to fly the last B-29 from the Pacific Theater where after all the
“29s” had won WWII. We would have a drawing, a contest with a write in
program. But no what we had was a makeshift staff crew that would be the last
crew. The Wing Nav, an old friend from Japan, had to take a check ride to
qualify as a crew nav. He asked me for the pony to the exam (which I had) so he
could pass the written (with this advantage he got a higher grade than I had - I
had the record high grade until then). Now we are going to depart and we were
about fifth from last.
“So
now we leave Okinawa but one thing I forgot to mention is that we had planned
our wedding on the 6th of November and to play it safe we moved it up to the
13th. We left “Oki” in good order but we had a new engineer and he sweated
fuel so we stopped at Guam for fuel. It was not a good night for navigation
clouds cbs and such I used latitude by Polaris to cruise into Guam. Then off to
Kwajalein atoll. A very uneventful trip one of our airplanes lost an engine and
had a tough time to get in but it made it and it was an easy repair job.
“Our
next leg was a 14--hour one to Hawaii and once more just a walk in the park, I
think about 800 miles out we picked up a radio beacon at Hilo. Hit the ground
running at Hickam, up all night but we partied all day it was just great they
had put out a lot of publicity about the B-29s going home so it was just great.
Now on Monday night we were ready for the last leg to Davis Monthon. We were out
preflighting the bird and we could hear all of the hoopla about the
"Last" B-29 to leave the Korean war and Pacific Theater. The
"last" crew was being honored (the staff crew) they had bands and
speeches and such and we could care less as we got ready to leave. I crawled out
onto the left wing to check the compass ( there was a face plate to remove and
check for rotation of the gyro or something) and there was a crowd around the
left life raft hatch. The “29” had two life rafts one over each wing which
were released by “T” handles at the front of the tunnel. I had no idea what
was going on but later I found out they were concerned about the latching of the
life raft door.
“So
we taxied out and down the runway and as we reached
about two hundred feet of altitude, I heard a bang, the Pilot felt a jolt
and things turned badly for a second or two. I climbed up into the tunnel and
the life raft door was banging on the fuselage sans life raft. We declared an
emergency and turned downwind and landed. The first thing the crew checked was
the “T” handles and they were both still safety wired so it was not internal
and there was a hole in the horizontal stabilizer about 20 inches wide and about
three feet deep were the CO2 bottle of the life raft system had hit the tail
structure.
“As
we looked at our broken airplane the "last B-29" took off. Two days
later with patches on the stabilizer and a new raft we left.
We hit Davis Monthan two days after the last B-29 did and I got home on
our original wedding date but just seven days before the adjusted one. So the
last B-29 flown by Geesins Raiders of the night was the last B-29 Bomber flown
in SAC and landed on Nov 4, 1954 at Davis Monthan AFB. Now other “29s” flew
after that but that was the last pure B-29 bomber (could do nothing else but
bomb) that flew in SAC.
“I have flight records to
back all of this up. This is some fragile claim to fame but the only one I have
and when the old guys gather around the bar I usually chirp up with "Hey I
was on the last B-29."
REPLICATION
OF BYRD’S 1926 FLIGHT TO
THE NORTH POLE
See AVWeb
at http://www.avweb.com/oshkosh/osh99/day4/poles/
Hubert de Chevigny’s attempt to
replicate Byrd’s flight to the Pole in April
2001fell short of the mark owing to technical difficulties (according to
journalist Christopher Pala).
BOOK
REVIEW
Orbital Mechanics Theory and Applications by Tom Logsdon is an excellent book for the professional practitioner and novice to better understand and gain new insights into the movements of satellites and rockets traveling in space, and grasp counterintuitive concepts and paradoxes in orbital mechanics a field that has been understood by only a small segment of our scientific professionals. Starting from the basic fundamentals of orbital mechanics, Logsdon utilizes amplifying illustrations profusely and clearly written explanations using no more than simple calculus to lead the reader through the complexities of satellite orbits, the orbital environment, powered flight maneuvers, boosting a satellite into orbit, today’s family of global boosters, enhancing the performance of booster rockets, choosing the proper orbit for a satellite, choosing the proper constellation architecture and space-age technologies for the twenty-first century. published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc 1998.
AMELIA
EARHART’S LAST FLIGHT
A replication of Amelia
Earhart’s last flight appears in
ION Newsletter Vol. 8, No. 2, Summer 1998 entitled
Amelia
Earhart And Fred Noonan:Navigating The Pacific Circa 1937
by
Major William L. Polhemus and can be found at http://www.ion.org
An
adaptation of the flight in puzzle form can be found under Navcerebrations
entitled “Lost and Found on Sea or Ground.”
NEXT
NAV SYSTEM
The chief engineer of a prominent
airframe company held a meeting with all his avionic engineers
seeking ideas for the next generation navigation system.
The ideas submitted spanned from the traditional to one that used no
hardware. The “no hardware”
idea centered on tapping the life time travel experiences
of each passenger. Giving credence to reincarnation, possibilities were
almost without limit. At a given
moment a passenger at random could be expected to blurt out “I think I’ve
been here before!” Thus was coined the concept “Deja Nav.”
(In a single thread of contiguous generations
alone, each occupied seat could
yield say two previous lives per century times
60 centuries elapsed (in an approximate biblical sense) from the inception of
mankind or 120 lifetimes. (In a thousand passenger transport, the product of the
seats times lifetimes
would yield 120,000 lifetime
experiences).
HALF-LIFES
I often wondered why college
catalogs didn’t annotate the
margins of their pages describing the
majors offered with a merit assessment of employment possibilities and the
half-life of each career. I
answered my own question. The
catalog would have to show the half-life of the “half-life” as well.
NAVSIGHTINGS
What happens when a tugboat encounters a closed drawbridge http://koti.mbnet.fi/~soldier/towboat.htm
The first airplane flew in 1849 as told in Freeflight, May 1999 issue at http://www.wgc.mb.ca/sac/freeflight/99_05