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Old 18 Sep 2021, 07:43 PM   #15
TenFour
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Join Date: Feb 2017
Location: USA
Posts: 1,722
Quote:
Not sure what they do these days. It's an art that is slowly fading away with the new Navy.
I'm pretty sure that Naval navigators still learn celestial navigation, but of course very accurate time is available via satellites and even ordinary wristwatches. You can get home clocks that automatically sync with the time signals, so the clock in my father's kitchen is probably much more accurate than the chronometers we used to sail with. Even as recently as the 1960s long-distance aviators used celestial navigation (sextants) to cross oceans. Big passenger jets and military aircraft would have small clear domes in the top where the navigator could use the sextant to shoot the stars and sun.
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