RadicalDude
Social Justice Warlord
Looks like the CG are gonna take the LORAN-C system offline starting 08FEB... they're saying it's no longer necessary as a backup to GPS.http://www.insidegnss.com/node/1806
When I went through Nav training at Mather, we did Loran the real way - loaran chains, loran charts, hyperbolic plotting, oscillioscopes, timing, etc. Loran, celestial nav, true heading/true airspeed and drift meters - we could get you anywhere....good times....
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When I went through Nav training at Mather, we did Loran the real way - loaran chains, loran charts, hyperbolic plotting, oscillioscopes, timing, etc. Loran, celestial nav, true heading/true airspeed and drift meters - we could get you anywhere....good times....
I did indeed spend many a night at those very racks.
T-43? Yeah it had more modern equipment than the first P-3s (baseline C) I flew at VP-31 going through the rag. I shit you not ... old-school Loran (oscilloscope not LTN-211), drift meter, sextant and TAS/TH/wind triangles...Moffett-Barbers-Midway-Cubi-Misawa-Adak-Moffett for my extended navigation training. Great trip that taught me never to depend on inertials in the P-3. We had ANS-84s that were considered excellent if they were within a hundred miles after a 12 hour flight. The NAV was definitely the most important part of NAVCOMM back then. The P-3B Navs lived this stuff - there was no COMM in their position title and they had an enlisted radio operator to do that part since navigating was a full time job for them.
I guess that means we've closed the Nav School at Corpus. Man, time flies when you're having fun. But that brings up another question: since the Navy is now training AF WSO's, do our NFO Tacco's get any long-range, over-water nav training? If so, where? Is even Mather still open as a nav school?
Had UI and UI.5 in VP-46. UI.5 half way through my tour - took out the ASN-84s and Loran and gave us the LTN-72s and Omega. Had a lot of growing pains with the LTN-72s for the first year or so when they sucked, but sucked less than the ASN-84s. By the time I left, we had them down to 5-7 NM drift after a 12 hour burner.Fortunately, I only flew UII.5 and above and never had to deal with the ASN-84. We had LTN-72s, which were a great piece of gear. I never had one dump in flight, and the accuracy was generally around +/-1nm/hour. I was an instructor at 31 near the end, and was on one of the last "real" nav extends that the squadron did. Similar to the one you describe, but counter-clockwise: Moffet-Whidbey-Adak-Misawa-Guam-Barbers-Moffet. After that, we only went to Barbers and back until the squadron went away.
Mather succombed to BRAC in the early 90s, and joint service Nav training moved to Randolph AFB in San Antonio. There have been other significant changes since then, but I'm not up to speed on them. I'm guessing that current P-3 newbie NFOs don't get any extended over water training until the FRS.