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Aviation History
1939
1939 - 0126.PDF
54 FLIGHT. JANUARY 19, 1939 NAVIGATION • AT a conservative estimate, 50 per cent, of the accidents to aircraft in the last five years have been due to bad navigation. I. should not be surprised if a careful analysis showed a much greater proportion. What are the typical aircraft accidents which are re ported time after time? Most frequent is the hillside crash. " Plane flies into side of hill [or mountain, which is even worse]. All dead." Can anyone say this is not due to bad navigation? If the pilot knew where he was, he would know the hill was in front of him. In other words, he did not know his position. ""THE author is well qualified to write on his subject Alone and unaided, he has navigated his way acrosss more miles of ocean than most of us would care to contemplate. In 1929-30 he flew solo in a Moth from England to Australia and then, in the same machine on floats, from New Zealand to Australia via Norfolk Island and Lord Howe Island, and subsequently on to Japan via New Guinea and the Philippines. He related his experiences in three unusually entertain ing books, Seaplane Solo, Solo to Sydney and Ride on the Wind. Mr. Chichester's navigation on the Norfolk Island flight made him the first winner of the G.A.P.A.N.S Johnston Memorial Trophy— the highest possible recognition of navigational ability. He is now on the staff of Henry Hughes and Sons, the aeronautical instrument specialists. This is the first of several articles on various aspects of navigation that Mr. Chichester will contribute to Flight.—ED. It is true there is a possible case for which the navigator cannot be blamed. The machine is flying blind and just crossing the range when ice or engine failure forces it down; the navigator may know his position within two miles, which is all that can be demanded of him when flying blind, and yet not know which side of the summit he is; but this must be an extremely rare case. Another case, typical of America, is where the navigator, flying a radio range, has followed a beam reflected from the mountains, and the machine has consequently flown straight into the mountain. Even this is faulty navigation, because the navigator ought not to have relied on one method only, namely, radio; and certainly not on one beam only. -FOURTH RATE Bradshaw-and-wristwatch Aeronautics, Born 1914, Die Hard — But They Must be Killed if Flying is to Become Really Safe : Some Practical Examples of Wrong and Right Methods By FRANCIS CHICHESTER Another cause of hillside crashing is ignorance of a drop in barometric pressure. The pilot thinks he is 800ft. above the summit, but the barometer has dropped an inch and he hits the mountain. This is faulty navigation, because, if he had no means of finding out the barometric drop, he should have taken precautions. Most hillside crashes, however, are purely and simply bad navigation—the pilot does not know his position. A similar kind of accident is that when the pilot has been flying above cloud for a distance, does not know his posi tion correctly, and comes down into hilly country where he expected to find low-level flat ground. Perhaps too much reliance has been placed solely on W/T. direction finding, without a check by D.R. or celestial navigation. Radio beams may be reflected by mountain ranges, refracted by a coast or may fade; and in any case, at the best, can only be expected to give the machine's position within 5 degrees of a line. The trouble is that they give a false sense of accuracy and security; they must be supported by another method. Far too often we read of a machine completely dis appearing. Perhaps wreckage is afterwards found at sea, when the machine never should have been over the sea at all, and certainly not hundreds of miles off its course—as has been known to happen. Whether the aeroplane has hit a cliff, flown into the sea, or run out of petrol and fallen in, it is the navigation that is to blame. Possibly because of the simplest mistake, such as setting the wrong compass course. It is amazing what howlers can be made. One recalls the two un fortunate Germans in a Junkers who set out from Koepang for Darwin, 520 miles away, and hit the coast of Australia 400 miles off their course to the west.
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