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 plane to sit up in and shoot the stars with a bubble sextant.”
The full article can be read in the Guardian Online.
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 be performing a ‘