http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/9544/

Selman Field, the WWII Air Corps largest navigation school is holding a reunion May 1, 2003 - May 5, 2003 at the Atrium in Monroe, Louisiana. Contact Swansea Kotz at 318-325-2998 or Wilma Rainwater at 318-323-6404

VERNAL EQUINOX DAY AND NIGHT LENGTH NOT EQUAL http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/equinoxes.html

Many viewers may be surprised to find that the length of day and night are not equal in duration on the first day of spring. Spring occurs when the center of the Sun crosses the equator of the Earth. Instead of using the center of the Sun as it crosses the horizon as a reference for marking sunrise and sunset which is hard to discern, we use the upper and lower limbs of the Sun’s disk as it crosses the horizon. The reason is that sunrise is marked when the upper limb of the sun first becomes visible at the horizon and sunset is marked when the lower limb of the sun disappears from the horizon. Thus the duration of the day is effectively lengthened by the transit of a diameter of the sun, the refraction of the sun’s light (which elevates its true altitude) and the height of the observer.

INSTITUTE OF NAVIGATION (ion.org)

http://www.ion.org/membership/

59th Annual Meeting
June 24-26, 2003 - Albuquerque, New Mexico

ION GPS/GNSS 2003 Meeting
September 9-12, 2003 - Portland, Oregon

ROLAND PETERSON

Roland Peterson passed away March 9, 2003. He joined Litton Guidance and Control Systems in 1960 as an engineer and advanced to president of the division and then to President of Litton Industries. Earlier he had worked at Sperry Gyroscope. Roland received both a Bachelor’s and Masters degree in electrical engineering from Polytechnic University Brooklyn. He was a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He was a highly recognized expert in inertial navigation and was a recipient of the Hays Award from The Institute of Navigation in recognition of his leadership in the advancement of navigation. Roland was a member of numerous civic and professional organizations. Roland Peterson’s remains will be interred in Arlington National Cemetery.

AWARDS HONOR DEVELOPERS OF GPS

Dr. Ian Getting chairman emeritus of Aerospace Corp. and Dr. Bradford Parkinson professor of Astronautics at Stanford University were awarded the highest engineering awards as developers of the global positioning system. The National Academy of Engineering presented Getting and Parkinson the Charles Stark Draper Prize of $500,000.

GPS pioneer Bradford Parkinson awarded Draper Prize in engineering http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/report/news/2003/february19/draper-219.html

BY MARK SHWARTZ

There was a time, not long ago, when hikers had to rely exclusively on a compass or map to find their way out of the woods. But now, backpackers wandering in even the most remote wilderness can instantly figure out their exact location simply by turning on a $100 handheld Global Positioning System (GPS) device. On Tuesday, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) honored two of the pioneers of GPS technology -- Bradford W. Parkinson of Stanford University and Ivan A. Getting of the Aerospace Corporation -- by awarding them the 2003 Charles Stark Draper Prize. The announcement was made at a National Press Club briefing in Washington, D.C., and can be viewed at www.press.org.

Significant achievement

Presented annually since 1989, the $500,000 Draper Prize recognizes engineers whose accomplishments have significantly impacted society.

"Many of engineering's great achievements become so much a part of our lives that they are taken for granted," said NAE president William A. Wulf. "I think that, without question, GPS is destined for this distinction. It is an achievement that deservedly joins the ranks of previous Draper Prize honors, such as the semiconductor microchip, the jet engine, satellite technology, fiber optics and the Internet."

Parkinson -- the Edward C. Wells Professor in the School of Engineering, Emeritus, at Stanford -- earned his doctoral degree at the university in 1966. Six years later, he was chosen to direct the fledgling Department of Defense GPS program.

NEA officials singled out Parkinson for his pivotal role as program director in designing the original GPS system architecture, as well as for its engineering, development, demonstration and implementation, adding, "He continues to work on GPS at Stanford University, further honing its accuracy and using it to control such things as helicopters, farm tractors and spacecraft."

GPS initially was developed for the guidance, navigation and control of military aircraft, missiles and satellites -- and to aid people on the ground.

"Now it has become commonplace in many everyday applications and has fundamentally changed navigation for various modes of transportation through its capability to give precise positioning coordinates and very accurate real time," NAE officials said, noting that GPS technology now is routinely used in air traffic control systems, ships, trucks and cars, and for emergency situations on land and sea.

In addition to his work at the Stanford GPS Lab, Parkinson is co-principal investigator of the Stanford-based Gravity Probe B program -- a NASA-funded test effort to validate Einstein's General Theory of Relativity using orbiting gyroscopes.

GPS visionary

Parkinson, chairman of the board of trustees of the California-based Aerospace Corporation, shared the prize with Getting, the former president of Aerospace, who first envisioned a system in the 1950s that would use satellite transmitters to pinpoint locations anywhere on Earth with extreme accuracy. "After it was shown that GPS could work, Getting became a tireless advocate for making sure the complex system was actually built," NAE officials noted.

Established in 1964, NAE is an independent, nonprofit institution that operates under a congressional charter granted to the National Academy of Sciences in 1863. Members are elected by their peers for their seminal contributions to engineering. The Draper Prize was established to increase public understanding of the contributions of engineering and technology.

MOON IN THE COURTROOM

The moon has played an important role in two famous cases influencing the verdict of at least one jury. Abraham Lincoln was retained as a defense attorney for William Armstrong the son of a friend. Armstrong and James Norris were accused of savagely beating to death James Metzger in a grove in 1857. Norris who had retained another lawyer was tried first and convicted. The key prosecution witness in the second trial claimed that he saw Armstrong beaten to death under a moon overhead. Lincoln had consulted an almanac that he brought to court. He had the witness repeat a dozen times that the crime took place under a moon overhead. The moon was actually in its third quarter and visible low over the horizon. This crucial evidence of the elevation of the moon enabled Lincoln to obtain an acquittal for his client. The case became famous and known as the Almanac Trial.

In 1943 swashbuckling Errol Flynn found himself on trial for statutory rape of Peggy Satterlee on his yacht Sirocco anchored off Catalina Island in August 1943. Flynn was represented by Jerry Giesler a famous Hollywood defense attorney. Satterlee testified that she was lying on a bunk with the moon in full view through the porthole when the rape took place. Giesler, attacking her credibility, stated that the moon could not be seen as it was directly overhead. Satterlee’s attorney enlisted the expert testimony of Dr. Clarence Cleminshaw director of the Griffith Observatory. Cleminshaw introduced a small celestial globe into the courtroom and showed where the moon would be at the time that Satterlee claimed she viewed it. Based on his calculations, he proved that the moon was to Satterlee as she asserted. In this case, however, Flynn was acquitted despite the expert lunar testimony.

FROM A RAAF REFERENCE (RAAF - Part III) http://members.ozemail.com.au/~smithn/theraaf.htm

It was essential, when taking a reading with the Astro Compass, that you used the correct star. The Astro Aid Roller was good for this. However on one night trip, a Navigator complained that he had difficulties. He saw a "red" star to his port side, and took a reading. However the only "red" star was Betelgeuse and it wasn't shown on the Roller or on the Astro Almanacs (for calculating). Eventually the mystery was solved when he mentioned the "red" star kept on moving. There were six aircraft flying on training exercises that evening, and he had taken an Astro reading on the red light of one of the other aircraft.

JOINT SPECIALIZED UNDERGRADUATE NAVIGATOR TRAINING

Joint Specialized Undergraduate Navigator Training (JSUNT) is conducted between the U. S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas, and Naval Air Station Pensacola, Fla.

Air Education and Training Command trains navigators for the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and several other foreign countries at Randolph AFB in the T-43A aircraft and T-45 navigation simulators. AETC also trains all Air Force electronic warfare officers at Randolph AFB.

The JSUNT program at Randolph AFB, trains navigators and electronic warfare officers for assignment in aircraft such as the B-52 Stratofortress, all C-130 variants, all C-135 variants, the C-5 Galaxy and the E-3 Sentry. Navy graduates will go to either the P-3 Orion or E-6 Mercury aircraft. All students complete the primary phase of training consisting of radio and radar navigation procedures. After primary, Air Force students are selected based on their performance for either the airlift/tanker/maritime (ATM) track or the electronic warfare officer track. All Navy students complete the ATM track.

Air Force students in the ATM track receive training in global and low-level navigation. They complete their undergraduate navigator training in the T-1A Jayhawk with a unique airmanship program. Navy students in the ATM program complete the global phase of training then graduate from JSUNT.

Future weapon systems officers enter the training pipeline at NAS Pensacola, Fla., and attend a number of joint and Navy courses. Students initially attend a preflight course where they learn the basics of flying fundamentals.

Students then proceed through the primary and intermediate phases of training where they fly in the T-34C Turbomentor and T-1A.

Based on performance during the primary/intermediate phases of training, students are selected for either the strike or strike/fighter track.

Officers in the strike/strike fighter track will receive radar intercept training flying in the T-39 Saberliner. Graduates of the strike track will receive a follow-on assignment to the B-1B Lancer. Graduates of the strike/fighter track will move on to an assignment in the F-15E Strike Eagle.

Air Force officers who successfully complete JSUNT receive their silver wings and are awarded the aeronautical rating of navigator. Naval officers who complete JSUNT are designated naval flight officers and receive their wings of gold.

Point of Contact

"http://www.aetc.randolph.af.mil/pa/", Public Affairs Office; 100 H Street, Suite 3; Randolph Air Force Base, Texas 78150-4330; DSN 487-3946 or (210) 652-3946.

May 2001

EXCELLENT B-47 SITE

The Sweetest Killer
A Personal History of the B-47 & RB-47E Stratojets
(A work in progress)
Copyright 2002 by E. J. McGill

Relive the B-47 experience at http://mywebpages.comcast.net/ejmcgill/sweetest.html#Sweetest

B-47 MILK BOTTLE PROJECT

http://www-ext.tinker.af.mil/pa/archive/20010511/Stratojet.htm

SEMINARS

Interested in finding out more about inertial navigation and GPS? Visit the following sites of organizations that conduct tutorials on these subjects.

Navtech

http://www.navtechgps.com/

Technalytics

http://www.technalytics.com/course/enrollment.htm

http://www.technalytics.com/course/instructor.htm

Strapdown Associates

http://www.strapdownassociates.com/

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ION SECTION The Institute of Navigation Southern California Section held its first meeting for the New Year January 30, 2003was hosted by the Aerospace Corporation and held in Aerospace Building D8, room 1010, 200 N. Aviation Blvd., El Segundo.

The guest speaker Dr. Myron Kayton and gave an historical perspective of inertial navigation and the future its may hold. An abstract of the talk and a biography of Dr. Kayton are provided below.

Abstract:
Dr. Kayton discussed the early development and origins of inertial
navigation as used in ship gyrocompass's, fire-control gyroscopes, and
vibration sensors. He followed with their evolution into spinning wheel
inertial gyros, tuned-rotor gyros, and lasers; and into force-feedback
accelerometers and pendulous-integrating-gyro accelerometers.

Next, he discussed different mounting techniques for these instruments
using gimbals versus fixing them to the vehicle. The talk continued
with a discussion of the evolution of navigation computers from analog to
digital. The associated computer algorithms also was discussed,
including some of the methods developed for alignment, initialization, and
calibration of inertial systems.

The talk wrapped up with a prediction of the future of navigation in civil
and military aircraft, spacecraft, and automobiles in light of GPS. A list
of references for the talk was made available.



Biography:
Dr. Kayton has over 47 years of experience designing avionics, navigation,
communication, and computer-automation systems. He has been an independent
Consulting Engineer since 1981, working on many automotive electronic and
process systems, an upper-stage spacecraft, a satellite interceptor,
commercial communication systems, numerous aircraft avionics systems, and a
dozen land navigators. From 1968-81 at TRW, Dr. Kayton served as Chief
Engineer for Spacelab avionics, System Engineer for Space Shuttle avionics,
and as Project Engineer for the electronics of the Inertial Upper Stage and
a nuclear power plant, among many assignments.

During Apollo, Dr. Kayton was Deputy Manager for Lunar Module Guidance and
Control at NASA's Johnson Space Center, where his office directed the
contractors designing two inertial navigation systems, an alignment
telescope, the flight controls, crew station and two radars. He served on
one of the world's first Software Change-Control Boards. From 1960-65, he
was Section Head at Litton's Guidance and Control Division, where he
designed and analyzed some of the earliest multi-sensor navigation systems.


Dr. Kayton is a registered electrical and mechanical engineer. He is a Life
Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), was
an elected member of the corporate Board of Directors, and served two terms
as President of its Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society. He was an
active member of standards committees for Navigation Sensors and Digital
Computers for Nuclear Power Plants. He taught simulation methods,
multi-sensor navigation systems, and land navigation at UCLA and published
more than 80 papers and articles. He is co-author of the standard reference
text, AVIONICS NAVIGATION SYSTEMS and author of NAVIGATION: LAND, SEA, AIR AND SPACE. He wrote chapters for several books and handbooks.

Dr. Kayton received the Ph.D. in Instrumentation from M.I.T. in 1960, the
M.S. from Harvard University with a concentration in electrical engineering,
and the B.S. in mechanical engineering from The Cooper Union. Dr. Kayton is
listed in WHO'S WHO IN ENGINEERING, WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA, and AMERICAN MEN AND WOMEN OF SCIENCE. He is an instrument-rated pilot and holds an FAA Project Raincheck certificate in Air Traffic Control.

LUCKY LINDY

Charles A. Lindberg was luckier than is generally realized in his historic first solo trans-Atlantic flight in 1927. According to John P. V. Heinmuller, one of the official NAA observers for the New York-to-Paris flight, a freak wind condition existed over the North Atlantic on May 20-22, 1927. The pressure patterns were arranged in such a way that the net drift acting upon the Spirit of St. Louis was zero, the first time this had ever been recorded by weather experts. Nevertheless Lindbergh was still challenged by bad weather that compelled him to alter heading many times dodging storms. The combination of these track alterations and lower than expected tail wind components extended his flight by an hour. Somehow through compensatory maneuvers the navigational errors remained manageable. Not to be dismissed is that Lindbergh was a very meticulous planner and researched all aspects of the historical flight thoroughly before his departure.

FIRST TEST OF GRAVITY’S SPEED UPHOLDS EINSTEIN

http://www.msnbc.com/news/856046.asp?0cv=CB10

A false-color image (seen at the site), based on data from the Very Long Baseline Array and the Effelsberg radio telescope, shows the radio signature of the quasar J0842+1835. Observations of the quasar were used to estimate the speed of gravity. A false-color image, based on data from the Very Long Baseline Array and the Effelsberg radio telescope, shows the radio signature of the quasar J0842+1835. Observations of the quasar were used to estimate the speed of gravity. Speed matches speed of light, scientists say — but doubters persist.

FASTER THAN SPEED OF LIGHT Jaoa Magueijo

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0738205257/qid%3D1042077021/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/002-6461941-1199237

Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Could Einstein be wrong and Magueijo right? Equally pressing for Magueijo, a lecturer in theoretical physics at London's Imperial College, is whether the physics editor at the preeminent science journal Nature is in fact "a first class moron" for rejecting his last paper. And did that cosmologist from Princeton steal his idea? What about all those hours wasted writing requests for funding from those "parasites," those "ex-scientists well past their prime" who dispense the monies that make contemporary science possible? Welcome to the world of career science, disclosed here in all its flawed brilliance. Magueijo's heretical idea-that the speed of light is not constant; light traveled faster in the early universe-challenges the most fundamental tenet of modern physics. Deceptively simple, the theory came to the author during a bad hangover one damp morning in Cambridge, England (many of the author's breakthroughs seem to arrive at unexpected moments, like while he's urinating outside a Goan bar). If true, Magueijo's Variant Speed of Light theory, or VSL, rectifies apparent inconsistencies in the Big Bang theory. Magueijo cunningly frames his journey with the stories of other famous, courageous heretics, notably Einstein himself, and one suspects an apologetics at work here. Magueijo, a 35-year-old native of Portugal, is opinionated and can seem immature and almost bratty in his diatribes against the banalities of academia or the hypocrisy and backbiting of peer review. But his science is lucidly rendered, and even his penchant for sturm und drang sheds light on the tensions felt by scientists incubating new ideas. This book shows how science is done-and so easily can be undone.

TOROIDAL EARTH (see navworld.com link Navworlds)

Of the twelve Earthshapes, the Toroidal generates most speculations as to the effects of gravity on a traveler on its surface. One interpretation is found at Ask A Scientist Physics Archive

Index Key: PHY042

Author: Casey Dill

Subject: Donut shaped planet

Text: What would the gravity be like on a donut shaped planet and could

such a planet exist?

Response #: 1 of 1

Author: A. Smith

Text: That is an interesting question. The problem can be done the

hard way, by integrating the gravitational potential for such a system... but

a rough answer can be obtained just by looking at the way gravity works. If

you were standing on the planet, then each little piece of the planet is

putting a little bit of force on you, attracting you towards it. If you were

standing on the outside, with the center of the donut hole exactly beneath

your feet, then you would feel a strong gravitational force straight down,

because all the parts of the donut are on the same side of you, and the

average direction is straight down. If you were standing on the inside, with

your head pointing to the donut hole center, then you would feel a somewhat

weaker gravitational force keeping your feet on the donut. The near parts of

the donut are exerting the stronger force, and so keeping you attached, but

the other side of the donut is above your head, and is exerting a weak force

in that direction so that the force keeping your feet down is partially

counteracted. If you stand at any other point on the rim, then the force on

you is not quite vertical - the net force does not point through your feet,

but there will be a small amount due to the other side of the donut pulling

you towards it. Such a planet certainly could exist. However, if it were the

size of the earth it would quickly collapse into something like a sphere, due

to the gravitational action of one side of the donut on the other -for a

really big mass (like the earth) the force is so strong that no material would

be strong enough to oppose it.

Another more persuasive view by Dr. Jerry Lipman is shown at http://home.earthlink.net/~jersl/ and is synopsized as follows:

My friend Joe Portney created the toroidal Earthshape.

You can see this Earthshape and several others by going to http://www.littongcs.com/ppz/whatif/ and clicking reference index.

Joe had mused as to what would things be like if the Earth had this shape. One interesting characteristic would be the effect of gravity and how its strength might vary. One is especially intrigued with the way gravity varies inside the toroidal Earth.

Since my computer took too long to crank out the gravity field for a three dimension toroidal planet I decided to make a first approximation to the toroidal earth by slicing up the toroid into thin disks of thickness delta. I then computed the mass attraction force as inversely proportional to square of the distance to the center of mass of the slice. I was able to approximately determine the gravity characteristics more easily. The gravitational force parallel to the plane of the toroid is shown in the figure below! I have assumed the toroidal earth to have an average radius of one unit. The gravitational constant has also been normalized.

The forces are shown for four different heights, h, above (or below) the toroidal Earth central plane. Inside the toroid the horizontal forces all attract a small mass (for example a satellite) towards the center of the toroid. It appears that a satellite could orbit inside the central plane of the toroidal Earth. A satellite could orbit outside the toroid as well. It is not clear that a satellite is able to orbit in a plane perpendicular to the plane of the toroid spending some time inside and some time outside. Depending on its energy level we don't know if that orbit would be stable with out further examination. I may look at that circumstance later.

The gravitational forces perpendicular to the plane of the disk are shown in the figure below. The forces are evaluated at the same four heights, h, above (or below as seen at the site) the toroid as was done for the forces parallel to the plane of the toroid. Based on these two diagrams one can see that the oceans will not be attracted all over to the surface of the toroid. Indeed the gravitational forces on the entire surface have a component toward the center to the Toroid. If the toroidal earth is nor rotating it appears that the water would be drawn off to the center. We have not included the effect of rotation of the Toroidal Earth about its axis (assumed to be the axis of symmetry perpendicular to the plane of the toroid). This rotation if sufficiently high to counter act the gravity might cause all the oceans to be thrown off in the opposite direction into space.

It is interesting to note that as one moves out of the central plane from near the center of the toroid, the attractive force back towards the center increases. The attractive force will increase to some maximum and then begin to decrease as one moves further out. Naturally at long distances from the toroid the attractive force will appear as due to a point mass at the toroidal center and decrease inversely with distance squared. Thus for a rapidly rotating planet the thrown off oceans frozen into ice might end up forming "Saturn like" rings orbiting the planet.

Created by J.S.Lipman

Last updated 11/20/97