Nebakenezzer posted:

So the first transatlantic flight is going to reach its centennial on June 14th - 15th. I've been reading a book on the flight as I didn't know a great deal about it. The Vickers Vimy Alcock and Brown flew generated non-engine electricity by a little wind generator. First question: why? Did the Rolls-Royce Eagle engines not have an alternator? I don't get why they'd have two different electrical systems.

Nebakenezzer posted:

So the first transatlantic flight is going to reach its centennial on June 14th - 15th. I've been reading a book on the flight as I didn't know a great deal about it. The Vickers Vimy Alcock and Brown flew generated non-engine electricity by a little wind generator. First question: why? Did the Rolls-Royce Eagle engines not have an alternator? I don't get why they'd have two different electrical systems.

Nebakenezzer posted:

Second: here is a list of Brown's navigation equipment. I understand what some of these are (like charts and a sextant, obviously) but some of the others are a little obscure to me: Mercantor's chart with two overlays for shooting current sun and stars, Naval sextant with special extra deep grooves for easy reading with vibration, a six inch drift bearing plate (?), an artificial split level horizon (?) [apparently different from a gyro artificial horizon], a baker navigation machine (?), an Appleyard [great brand name] course and distance calculator (?), transverse tables for dead reckoning calculation, and aircraft compass.

Nebakenezzer posted:

Third: So I totally forgot the first flight across the Atlantic was a competition started by the Daily Mail with a 10,000 pound reward. I'm reading a book from the 1950s on the flight, and it has a...story about one of the other entrants, the Martinside Raymor. [A single wing version of the Martinsyde (if you believe wikipedia) Buzzard biplane].

shame on an IGA posted:

that's literally an Air Koryo palette swap and my rage is boundless

Nebakenezzer posted:

Cool, thank you. I'm glad to hear there's some mildly archaic things in this text and its not just me; the author spelled 'role' with a upward facing chevron (like a house roof).

Jealous Cow posted:

slidebite posted:

Nebakenezzer posted:

Cool, thank you. I'm glad to hear there's some mildly archaic things in this text and its not just me; the author spelled 'role' with a upward facing chevron (like a house roof).

Cat Mattress posted:

Those are called circumflex accents.

BalloonFish posted:

"artificial split level horizon" - I'm pretty sure this is a typo for 'spirit level' horizon - just a bubble in a chamber of liquid. Later RAF-pattern sextants included an in-built bubble chamber so the navigator would know when the instrument was perfectly level, since they wouldn't always be shooting to the actual horizon.

Ola posted:

Absolutely loving this old nav tangent, well done guys.

Platystemon posted:

You’re right about the typo, but the device is slightly more complicated than that.
..........
That’s exactly what an “artificial spirit level horizon” is. It’s a mirror with spirit levels affixed to it so you can level it out.

hobbesmaster posted:

Won’t the spirit levels read level in a coordinated turn?

Finger Prince posted:

This ancient navigation thing is pretty cool. Today we're all like you measure the reflection of stars in a puddle of mercury whaaaaaat???
So the ancient mariner asks: yeah, so what do you do to navigate?
Well, we put a satellite - thats a machine that orbits the earth - in the sky, and the satellite has a device that counts the elemental particles decaying off a radioactive isotope... You're just gonna have to trust me that's a thing... Anyway because those particles come off at an extremely regular interval, you've basically got an extremely accurate clock. Now you know all about navigating with accurate clocks, right? So this satellite transmits the time on it's clock over wireless radio to anyone with an appropriate radio receiver, so they can know exactly where they are withing a couple of meters. You can buy one for the equivalent of a couple of shillings.

vessbot posted:

Yes, but that's difficulty when using the instrument to judge what level is.

If they're flying straight&level (&unaccelerated) as judged by other means, then it's fine.

hobbesmaster posted:

Also I guess the idea for a transatlantic crossing back then was to hit Europe and then figure out precisely which part of the coast you were over based on landmarks?

In that case precision the way we think of it today isn’t necessary. The pacific would be a huge problem though and that’s confirmed by the number of disappearances that occurred.

Jealous Cow posted:

How can we connect this with spirit cooking and spirit airlines?

Wingnut Ninja posted:

That Air Force One design still had a long way to go on the 'Murrica scale.

quote:

Jay Prochnow, a retired US Navy pilot, was delivering a Cessna 188 from the United States to Australia. Prochnow had a colleague who was flying another Cessna 188 alongside him. The long trip would be completed in four stages. On the morning of 20 December, both pilots took off from Pago Pago. His colleague crashed on take off but was unharmed. Prochnow landed and set out the following day to Norfolk Island.

When Prochnow arrived at the region where he believed Norfolk Island was, he was unable to see the island. He informed Air Traffic Control (AATC), but at this point, there was no immediate danger. He continued searching; after locating more homing beacons from other islands, he realised his automatic direction finder had malfunctioned and he was now lost somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. He alerted AATC and declared an emergency.

There was only one aircraft in the vicinity, Air New Zealand Flight 103, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 travelling from Fiji to Auckland. The flight had 88 passengers on board. The captain was Gordon Vette, the first officer was Arthur Dovey, and the flight engineer was Gordon Brooks. Vette knew that if they did not try and help, Prochnow would almost certainly die. Vette was a navigator, and at the time of the incident, he still held his licence. Furthermore, another passenger, Malcolm Forsyth, was also a navigator; when he heard about the situation he volunteered to help. As neither Prochnow nor the crew of the DC-10 had any real idea of where the Cessna was, the crew had to devise creative ways to find it. By this time, contact between both aircraft had been made on long-range HF radio. Prochnow had crossed the international date line, and the date was now 22 December. Vette was able to use the setting sun to gain an approximate position of the Cessna. He instructed the Cessna to point directly at the setting sun. He did the same and noted the difference in heading between the aircraft as four degrees. After making an allowance for the different altitudes of the aircraft, the difference in sunset times between the aircraft and Norfolk Island was also noted. This data allowed the crew to calculate that the Cessna must be southwest of the DC-10 by about 400 nautical miles. About 25 minutes after turning in that direction, contact on short-range VHF radio was established. This had a range of 200 nautical miles. It was hoped the DC-10 would be making a vapour trail to make it more visible. After contacting Auckland it was determined that weather conditions were not suitable for a trail. Brooks knew that by dumping fuel they could produce a vapour trail. As the search was getting more and more desperate, they decided to try it. Prochnow did not see the trail, and it was starting to get dark. Vette wanted all the passengers to be involved, so he asked them to look out of the windows and invited small groups to come to the cockpit.

As it got darker and darker, Prochnow considered ditching, but Vette did not want to give up. So they also used a technique known as "aural boxing" to try to pinpoint the small plane; this took over an hour to complete. Once it had been done, they had a much better approximation of Prochnow's position. The DC-10 used its strobe lights to try to make itself more visible to the Cessna. It took some time, but eventually, Prochnow reported seeing light. This was not the DC-10, it was an oil rig, and Prochnow went towards it. This was identified as Penrod, which was being towed from New Zealand to Singapore. This gave Prochnow’s exact position. After some confusion about the exact position of the Penrod, it was finally established that the estimates of the crew of the DC-10 were very accurate. Prochnow was able to make it to Norfolk Island with his remaining fuel. He touched down on Norfolk Island after being in the air for twenty-three hours and five minutes.

Arson Daily posted:

There is a TV movie with Scott backula about that very story!

Edit: it’s called “Mercy mission: the rescue of flight 771”

Double edit: there’s a book called Air Vegabonds about a guy who delivered airplanes for piper all over the world back in the 70s. The story about him crossing the Atlantic in winter in a tomahawk is my favorite.

drunkill posted:

Airbus did a thing

https://youtu.be/JS6w-DXiZpk

Finger Prince posted:

This ancient navigation thing is pretty cool. Today we're all like you measure the reflection of stars in a puddle of mercury whaaaaaat???
So the ancient mariner asks: yeah, so what do you do to navigate?
Well, we put a satellite - thats a machine that orbits the earth - in the sky, and the satellite has a device that counts the elemental particles decaying off a radioactive isotope... You're just gonna have to trust me that's a thing... Anyway because those particles come off at an extremely regular interval, you've basically got an extremely accurate clock. Now you know all about navigating with accurate clocks, right? So this satellite transmits the time on it's clock over wireless radio to anyone with an appropriate radio receiver, so they can know exactly where they are withing a couple of meters. You can buy one for the equivalent of a couple of shillings.

StandardVC10 posted:

That's cool as hell. The nitpicky part of me wishes they'd have scrounged up an A300 or A310 too though.

hobbesmaster posted:

A340 is missing as well. They explicitly call it out as "in production" aircraft so that makes sense. Though that should exclude the beluga technically?

edit: oh it could've been a beluga xl?

Blue Footed Booby posted:

Atomic clocks use vibrations. Decay events are random, to the point where you can use slivers of radioisotopes to drive hardware random number generators for e-gambling.