Is the navigator cert still possible?

Flying a GCA into Frankfort in bad weather, the navigator had been monitoring the approach with his radar, and he called for a go-around before we got to minimums. He didn't like where we were heading.
 
Anyone ever buy a book from passbooks?

Passbooks.com | Flight Navigator (C-4036)

The Flight Navigator Passbook® prepares you for your test by allowing you to take practice exams in the subjects you need to study. It provides hundreds of questions and answers in the areas that will likely be covered on your upcoming exam.<br /><h4...
store.passbooks.com
 
Last edited:
My dad flew 747s and the early ones had a sextant port. He said they could actually use it but of course never did with INS.
 
Roller said:
Anyone ever buy a book from passbooks?

Passbooks.com | Flight Navigator (C-4036)

The Flight Navigator Passbook® prepares you for your test by allowing you to take practice exams in the subjects you need to study. It provides hundreds of questions and answers in the areas that will likely be covered on your upcoming exam.<br /><h4...
store.passbooks.com
Click to expand...

Wonder how long it was in their warehouse

IMG-6238.jpg
 
Pugs said:
In the Navy us TacAir guys got zero exposure to cel nav. We sent all the prop guys to the USAF to learn it at Mather. We did a lot of DR though!
Click to expand...
When the USAF changed (mid '80s) Undergraduate Navigator Training (UNT) to "Specialized Undergraduate Navigator Training" (SUNT), only the heavy platform navigators got celestial training. I was a UNT graduate, went to fighters, and then to be a SUNT instructor in the fighter track. The guys going to fighters never saw a sextant. They never got the chance to get a "cell navigation clearance" from ATC giving them license to wander over god's creation.
 
Gilbert Buettner said:
Flying a GCA into Frankfort in bad weather, the navigator had been monitoring the approach with his radar, and he called for a go-around before we got to minimums. He didn't like where we were heading.
Click to expand...
Do you know if it was a PAR or ASR GCA?
 
In the F-111 we would practice AILA's (Airborne Instrument Landing Approach). The WSO could use the attack radar and place the radar cursor on the runway touchdown point. The system would compute the desired glidepath to the cursor and position the glideslope and localizer bars on the main ADI and the pilot could manually fly what looked to him to be an ILS. Oftentimes when flying an ILS, I would set up an AILA and the pilot could flip a switch to compare the AILA guidance to the ILS guidance.
 
Got a new “whiz wheel” and some studying to do

IMG-6277.jpg
IMG-6279.jpg
IMG-6276.jpg




Also any idea on what time piece went here?

IMG-6287.jpg




Seems a usable bubble, apparently they can be field serviced, difficult to get a good photo

IMG-6285.jpg
 
Gilbert Buettner said:
They were telling that joke when I was in the Air Force in the 1960s.
Click to expand...
1739998656868.png
Mr. Harder has a cute little story about a new navigator erroneously leading a flight from a California AFB out over the Pacific on a reciprocal heading.
 
Rene said:
View attachment 138282
Mr. Harder has a cute little story about a new navigator erroneously leading a flight from a California AFB out over the Pacific on a reciprocal heading.
Click to expand...
Lots of stories... there was a base in northern Thailand on the border with Laos, Nakhon Phenom (we just called it NKP). They were very strict about leaving or entering the base. Everyone had to get a gate pass to get back on base after going to town. One day, a damaged B-52 on the way home from a bomb mission over North Vietnam had to abandon ship, and one of the crew members landed in the street in front of the base main gate. He took off the parachute and walked in. With some of the airmen yelling, "Hey, where is his gate pass?!"
 
Roller said:
Also any idea on what time piece went here?

IMG-6287.jpg
Click to expand...

Probably a stop watch, you click the stopwatch when you take your reading. Then you compare the stopwatch with your base clock to get the exact time you took the sight.

So you take your sight and read XX degrees and start your stopwatch. Go to the desk and right XX into your form. Look at your base clock and it reads HH hours, MM minutes, SS seconds, you click your stopwatch to stop and write down the time on the base clock. Then write down the time on the stopwatch and subtract it from time you wrote from the base clock. That is the time when your sight of XX degrees was taken.

This book is a simplified way of reducing star sights. The author, Rear Admiral Thomas Davies was the pilot of the Truculent Turtle, a Lockheed PV-2 that flew non-stop, unrefueled from Perth Australia to Lima Ohio. My Dad worked for him and they became friends and even started a Foundation to support and keep celestial navigation alive.

 
Pinecone said:
Probably a stop watch, you click the stopwatch when you take your reading. Then you compare the stopwatch with your base clock to get the exact time you took the sight.

So you take your sight and read XX degrees and start your stopwatch. Go to the desk and right XX into your form. Look at your base clock and it reads HH hours, MM minutes, SS seconds, you click your stopwatch to stop and write down the time on the base clock. Then write down the time on the stopwatch and subtract it from time you wrote from the base clock. That is the time when your sight of XX degrees was taken.

This book is a simplified way of reducing star sights. The author, Rear Admiral Thomas Davies was the pilot of the Truculent Turtle, a Lockheed PV-2 that flew non-stop, unrefueled from Perth Australia to Lima Ohio. My Dad worked for him and they became friends and even started a Foundation to support and keep celestial navigation alive.

Click to expand...

Thanks, real world I’ll just the Zulu time off my Apple Watch, but would be cool to get the correct watch to clip into it, just because

I got a computer for the readings that can handle 90-2000kts, still reading up on it

Charts wise I have these downloaded so far

 
Pinecone said:
Probably a stop watch, you click the stopwatch when you take your reading. Then you compare the stopwatch with your base clock to get the exact time you took the sight.

So you take your sight and read XX degrees and start your stopwatch. Go to the desk and right XX into your form. Look at your base clock and it reads HH hours, MM minutes, SS seconds, you click your stopwatch to stop and write down the time on the base clock. Then write down the time on the stopwatch and subtract it from time you wrote from the base clock. That is the time when your sight of XX degrees was taken.

This book is a simplified way of reducing star sights. The author, Rear Admiral Thomas Davies was the pilot of the Truculent Turtle, a Lockheed PV-2 that flew non-stop, unrefueled from Perth Australia to Lima Ohio. My Dad worked for him and they became friends and even started a Foundation to support and keep celestial navigation alive.
Click to expand...
The "airborne" sextant I used allowed the bubble view to be visible before the "shot". There was also a built in averager for the angle. A 2min shot, with the center of the two minutes being the "shot time". Start the shot, the averager starts, at the end of two minutes the view closes. Read what the averager displays, reset the timer and set up for the next shot. Taking airborne shots required constant viewing and centering of the shot during the 2 minutes.

Air Almanac and HO249s were standard flight equipment. In the mid to late 1980s, Texas Instrument programable calculators were set up with programs to take care a lot of the "pencil math" that was shown in a previous post. I had a RadioShack programable pocket computer for celestial work and flight planning. It was programmed using BASIC language.
 
BillTIZ said:
The "airborne" sextant I used allowed the bubble view to be visible before the "shot". There was also a built in averager for the angle. A 2min shot, with the center of the two minutes being the "shot time". Start the shot, the averager starts, at the end of two minutes the view closes. Read what the averager displays, reset the timer and set up for the next shot. Taking airborne shots required constant viewing and centering of the shot during the 2 minutes.

Air Almanac and HO249s were standard flight equipment. In the mid to late 1980s, Texas Instrument programable calculators were set up with programs to take care a lot of the "pencil math" that was shown in a previous post. I had a RadioShack programable pocket computer for celestial work and flight planning. It was programmed using BASIC language.
Click to expand...

Sounds the same as the A14, bubble is visible all the time, after 2min it goes out of view
 
Craig said:
I think the AC-130 is the only a/c that actually has a Nav anymore. Nav does all the coursework to and from the area and then assists with comms during firing. Col. Allison Black has done a couple of interviews about her time as a Nav on an AC-130.
Click to expand...
The AC-130J, MC-130J, WC-130J and EC-130J all have nav’s on the new J models. Well, CSO’s now. No longer Nav’s. I believe the E3’s for AWACS and Rivet Joints still have CSO’s. B52’s still have CSO’s as well.

FP
C-130E/H/J Nav (retired)
 
Roller said:
Thanks, real world I’ll just the Zulu time off my Apple Watch,
Click to expand...

The point is, you are taking the sight, so you can't see your watch, and your hands are on the sextant. And you need a PRECISE time.

So you use the stop watch to say you took the sight 57 seconds ago, while you look at your Apple Watch to see the current time to subtract the 57 seconds from
 
I am a fairly new FAA Aviation Safety Inspector in Minneapolis. I am pursuing authorization to administer practical testing for the FLIGHT NAVIGATOR FAA certificate. When I checked 2 years ago, there was no one qualified at the FAA to administer this examination. I’m looking at options. Don’t give up. Express your interest in this, it will help me with upper FAA management convincing. Currently, the rule is that ONLY AN FAA INSPECTOR HOLDING A FLIGHT NAVIGATOR CERTIFICATE CAN ADMINISTER THE TEST. I don’t think there are any. Maybe I can change that. Stay tuned over next 8 months. FAA rules currently do not allow a designated examiner for this certificate, only FAA Inspectors.
 
bromschwig said:
I am a fairly new FAA Aviation Safety Inspector in Minneapolis. I am pursuing authorization to administer practical testing for the FLIGHT NAVIGATOR FAA certificate. When I checked 2 years ago, there was no one qualified at the FAA to administer this examination. I’m looking at options. Don’t give up. Express your interest in this, it will help me with upper FAA management convincing. Currently, the rule is that ONLY AN FAA INSPECTOR HOLDING A FLIGHT NAVIGATOR CERTIFICATE CAN ADMINISTER THE TEST. I don’t think there are any. Maybe I can change that. Stay tuned over next 8 months. FAA rules currently do not allow a designated examiner for this certificate, only FAA Inspectors.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately or otherwise, the OP is no longer participating here.
 
bromschwig said:
I am a fairly new FAA Aviation Safety Inspector in Minneapolis. I am pursuing authorization to administer practical testing for the FLIGHT NAVIGATOR FAA certificate. When I checked 2 years ago, there was no one qualified at the FAA to administer this examination. I’m looking at options. Don’t give up. Express your interest in this, it will help me with upper FAA management convincing. Currently, the rule is that ONLY AN FAA INSPECTOR HOLDING A FLIGHT NAVIGATOR CERTIFICATE CAN ADMINISTER THE TEST. I don’t think there are any. Maybe I can change that. Stay tuned over next 8 months. FAA rules currently do not allow a designated examiner for this certificate, only FAA Inspectors.
Click to expand...
What airplane could you administer the test in? The majority of the C130’s have already been converted to J models. There’s only a handful of squadrons in AF using nav’s on J models for special missions.

It would be great if Nav’s could do the same as the AF pilots and provide the AF Form 8 checkride to the inspector and the certificate is issued from the Form 8.
 
bromschwig said:
I am a fairly new FAA Aviation Safety Inspector in Minneapolis. I am pursuing authorization to administer practical testing for the FLIGHT NAVIGATOR FAA certificate. When I checked 2 years ago, there was no one qualified at the FAA to administer this examination. I’m looking at options. Don’t give up. Express your interest in this, it will help me with upper FAA management convincing. Currently, the rule is that ONLY AN FAA INSPECTOR HOLDING A FLIGHT NAVIGATOR CERTIFICATE CAN ADMINISTER THE TEST. I don’t think there are any. Maybe I can change that. Stay tuned over next 8 months. FAA rules currently do not allow a designated examiner for this certificate, only FAA Inspectors.
Click to expand...

Bromschwig,

I hold the FAA Flight Navigator Certificate. I got it in 2007 from a checkride from an Oceanic Inspector from SFO--back then there were two inspectors. There was talk about getting identified as a DNE to support NOAA P-3s, NASA in California, and a few others, who posess the niche requirements. I would be interested in speaking with you about a way ahead on this. Please DM me.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top