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
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Coast Guard discontinuing LORAN navid program
- Thread starter RadicalDude
- Start date
When I was home on leave I went flying with my dad in his Bonanza, which incidentally has a LORAN reciever in it from the previous owner (guessing maybe from the 1980's). I turned it on, noticed that it was about 50 miles off, and marveled for a moment at how far technology has come. Then I turned it off.....I'm guessing that will be the last time it is ever used.
I remember navigating the big pond called the Pacific only using Loran C and Sun lines. And that was when Loran C was just coming online. It was the thing to use.
It saved my ass once, about 8 years back. I was navigating in an overnight sailing regatta in the Long Island Sound and the vis went to shit. Best fix I could get the old fashioned way put me in a triangle about 3-4 miles wide, and we were in shallow rocky waters. I tried to narrow down my position using the depth finder, but to no avail. I admitted defeat and turned on the LORAN and got a good lat/long fix. Not as accurate as GPS, but it kept my ass off the rocks. It was a good system.
I have literally never seen a piece of gear meant to receive LORAN, or any idea how it works. I thought it went away a while ago.
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....
Yup, good times indeed on the T-43. Did you do night cel practice in the sextant racks behind the training building? We were told to bring our textbook, a flashlight and our favorite adult beverage.
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.
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?
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.
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.
My brother was a DH at VP-31 when it was in its last gasps. Then went to VP-4 for his real DH tour.
magnetfreezer
Well-Known Member
As of May I think the last AF WSOs will be graduating from VT-86, at which point the AF will eventually train all their people in the new nav squadrons at Pcola that they've moved from Randolph. Right now P-3 NFOs select it after T-6 instruments (primary) and go straight to the FRS. P-3 and E-2 'FOs will eventually do multi-crew sims (mostly comm/sensors/CRM) at Pcola when the T-1s go back to the AF and the T-39s are replaced by the T-45.