Entries tagged "aviation"
2013-02-25
The expression, 'Over and Out', brings a smile to anyone with experience using radios.
This expression is never used these days by those with any training in radiotelephony or ‘RT’ as it is more commonly known. It is never used for a good reason: it makes no sense.
The two words have distinct and contradictory meanings.
“Over”, used at the end of a transmission, tells the receiver that the transmitter has finished that section of their broadcast and is expecting and will await a response.
“Out” means that the transmitter has finished speaking and is…
2011-09-23
We may never know the exact method that the earliest explorers used to find their way, but there is a friendly finger of suspicion that gets pointed regularly at the birds.
Some of the routes used by the pioneers of the Pacific match the migratory routes of the birds exactly.
The route used by the Maori fleet that sailed from Tahiti to New Zealand sometime in the fourteenth century and settled there is the same as that taken by the Long-tailed Cuckoo each September.
I like to think of these earliest navigators. I imagine them gazing…
2010-08-06
My thanks to William Goble for bringing my attention to a extraordinary piece of navigation history.Although standard practice in aerial navigation at the time, it is now remarkable to consider that the most powerful weapon in the history of warfare was guided using the stars. The Enola Gay dropped its atomic bomb payload on Hiroshima after an 1800 mile flight where the aircraft's position was checked using the stars. From the Guardian article:'Van Kirk's role was navigator: "We did things the old-fashioned way: celestial navigation, telling your position by the stars. We had a dome up top of the…
2010-01-16
The snow is melting away, but not at the same speed everywhere. The warmer wind which is blowing from the southeast today is leaving green swathes wherever it reaches. In this photo, which is taken looking east, the snow in the top right corner is being sheltered by woodland, but the snow to the left is also being left relatively untouched by the same wind because it is partly in the lee of the hill, but also because the woodland to the left of the picture is forcing the airflow up over it. In aviation terms the wind appears to…
