How did Planes Fly Before GPS?
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- Опубліковано 5 сер 2024
- How did Planes Fly Before GPS?:
The Wright Brothers first took to the skies in 1903 but GPS wasn't publicly available until 1983, so how did planes traverse the world in those 80 years? From celestial navigation to dead reckoning, to the firsts forms of radio telemetry (like adock range stations and LORAN) we'll be discussing them all in this vide.
On September 1st, 1983, Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was making a regularly scheduled flight from New York to Seoul, South Korea via Anchorage. Unknown to the pilots, because of an error in setting the autopilot system, the plane began deviating from its intended course, and flew over Russian controlled airspace in Kamchatka.
Today, this deviation would have been easily noticeable on the flight computer’s GPS system. GPS had been invented a decade earlier, but up until this point, it remained a tightly guarded asset of the US military and wasn’t shared with commercial pilots. The autopilot systems of the time followed magnetic courses based on the Earth’s electromagnetic field. So far out into the Pacific, away from the ground-based radar stations in Seoul, these magnetic courses would have been the pilot’s main navigational guide. After the plane was shot down by the Russians, GPS became available to the public for commercial aviation, but before that, there were a handful of ways pilots could tell just where they were in the world.
Pilotage was a system of literally using points of reference on the ground, like mountains or lakes, to determine their position and their desired course. Then came celestial navigation, using the stars to guide pilots at night or in places where there were no visible landmarks. Then pilots used dead reckoning, a fancy system of guestimating your location based on your wind speed and heading. Finally, after that pilots really took thinks up a notch with the adock range station, LORAN, VOR & TACAN, and eventually the Global Positioning System.
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Table of Contents (for the video markers)
0:00-1:28: Before GPS
1:28-1:52: Pilotage
1:52-3:05: Celestial Navigation
3:05-4:37: Dead Recokning
4:37-5:29: Adock Range Staton
5:29-6:44: LORAN
6:44-7:42: VOR & TACAN
7:42-9:00: GPS
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I was a military pilot before the days of GPS (which is SATELLITE BASED) and we used a navigation system called LORAN (our nav device was a TRACOR). Why is it that very few people know about or acknowledge the existence of a period where we used LORAN? That was a LAND/SURFACE BASED navigation system that used a kinda slow, complicated, cumbersome kind of charts with LORAN circles on them. In a hyperbolic system such as LORAN, a receiver on an aircraft or ship picks up radio signals broadcast by one or more pairs of radio stations spaced hundreds of miles apart. The system works by measuring the time delays between signals from the two stations. THAT was how airplanes navigated in those days prior to GPS and neither had ANYTHING to do with "How did airplanes fly", which is a whole different subject, generally called aerodynamics.
They discuss LORAN in this video.
What about ADFs and NDBs ? Were those used very commonly in the past?
Nowadays, student pilots like myself are learning how to use VORs / DMEs / VORTACs in conjunction with pilotage and dead reckoning and we’re not allowed to train with GPS. This’ll probably see some change in the future though. Based on what I’m understanding, LORAN seems like an interesting technology to locate your position. The same can be achieved by modern VOR triangulation where two VOR stations are used to find the intersection of the bearings on a sectional which would ultimately give your position.
@@raym984 I DO think that new pilots should be trained on any kind of new or existing navigation systems in order that they have some idea what is out there and be familiar with it. THAT said, I think NDBs and VORTACs (and plain VORs) are going to be joining the dinosaurs in the not too distant future. Also, new pilots (especially those working on an instrument rating) need to know how the GPS stuff works because a now LOT of instrument approaches are based upon GPS. ADFs are equipment in the aircraft that can be used to navigate by and also to shoot some instrument approaches, though that kind of approach is also becoming obsolete. Triangulating with either NDB or VOR can be done but it is a PITA, especially if you only have one (of whichever) receiver and have to switch back and forth between transmitting stations to figure out your position. Using two receivers is MUCH less of a hassle (though very few aircraft are equipped with 2 ADFs). 2 VOR receivers and a DME are pretty common equipment. Determining your position with one VORTAC is very easy if you have a VOR and DME equipment....only one station (that actually uses 2 signals--one for angular direction and one for distance) is required, making triangulation unnecessary. Nowadays, LORAN receivers are pretty rare in civilian aircraft and I haven't seen one in years---more like decades!.
My grandfather had some sort of rank through ROTC he had a degree in physics which led him into setting up some of the first computer databases for the US military. They since my mother had been alive, I know he set up infrastructure in Texas, Kansas, Carolina, and New Mexico. I believe all air force bases. He would go on all the time about rocket trajectory and all the different programs there were from the late 40's and 50's and still going on today for guided missile technology. He claims he was apart of the programs that help develop the tech you are talking about. Or maybe they used it to map the earth for their missile programs. He said he would use radar technology and sit in a small cockpit and take actual photos of the earth every second or so through travel. I never really cared or believed him. He was an old loud jack ass by the time I was born. But now that I'm older and he's gone. I'd give anything to understand the things he was telling me. Because I'm completely fascinated by these things now.
I was a USAF Navigator and there was no military or civilian GPS access in 1983…period. They used an INS (Inertial Navigation System) and all you had to do was enter the wrong longitude and it would send you off course if you did not back it up with VOR, Cel, DR, etc.,
definitely subscribing, love the way you present your content.
Nice this video voice over and animation is very good for a small channel like yours. I hope you get more subs soon
Thanks for the support! I hope we grow too 😅
Your Channel Is so underrated, i Hope in future you will have more subscribers
I hope so too 😅
Good vid 👍
Awesome stuff!
great video!
Beautiful video
Gee was an early electronic navigation system based on ground stations and pulses. It rose to significance during WW2 and lasted in British military aircraft long after. I was honoured to participate in the final Gee-approach landing as the navigator on the night Gee finally shut down in 1970. We timed our home ETA to the second. As the wheels touched the runway, seconds later, after midnight, the Gee system shut down. Loran succeeded Gee [which I disliked and subsequently Decca navigator, which most all navigators detested. It was a bodged version inherited from the Navy where it was much better suited]. After leaving the RAF, I worked for Decca Navigator at New Malden near London. But that's another story... 😁
I think your channel is about to get super big, this video was amazing, and I'm sure that if you keep on with the good work, the subscribers will arrive.
My mind was blown with the LORAN receiver, that invention was surely groundbreaking. If you need anything in regards to copywriting, graphic design, video editing or after effects, just let me know. I want to be a part of your growth.
Cheers from Bogotá, Colombia!
Excellent video - very informative
?, never
Amazing video!
Glad you liked it!
amazing video, impressive for a small channel!
Glad you liked it! Really means a lot to us small guys
1:00 Looks like an extra R might've slipped into that executive order.
If only my editor paid as much attention to details as you
Oh wait, I am my editor 😪
I'm a student pilot earning my PPL, and you might be surprised to know that VOR is still widely used in general aviation. It's a convenient tool for cross country navigation, especially out here in the Midwest where everything is flat; no mountains to cut off LOS
Very interesting
this was very interesting i am liking to learn about planes recently fascinating did no know they used to use the stars sounds so ancient
It’s amazing that just an airplane over a country is enough to shoot it down. Absolutely unacceptable
Or just droning people like obama did.
Great video
Glad you liked it!
6:54 the arrow points to the VOR with a big arrow saying "these things" when all they are pointing to is the engine instrument panel which has nothing to do with navigation
Fascinating. Glad we don't fly using the earlier methods. They sound terrifyingly prone to error.
Glad you liked the video!
Compared to today, but they were the best of the best during their time.
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Same way they do now-but it was harder to navigate!
Liked
Hearted
I started flying in 1974, we used to just "point and go"
An inertial navigation system would've been interesting also
I think that is the "Dead Reckoning" he mentioned.
you didn't mentioned Inertial navigation System ( INS ) and I have a question for you how submarines find their away when hundreds of feets underwater where I think gps signals can't reach.
A lot of submarines use an inertial navigation system (kind of like planes estimating there current location by extrapolating from there last location) and then when they resurface after a while they re-update their location.
YOU FORGOT THE DECCA NAVIGATOR SYSTEM
Sounds like it was really hard being a pilot in days before gps😮
really - a channel focused on science says "how did planes fly before GPS" they flew but how did they navigate!
6:55 That arrow is pointing to engine one RPM. Definitely not a VOR/DME instrument
How did the pilots of the imperial japan navigate during the second world war over the pacific ocean in cloudy weather, in conditions of radio silence and the absence of visual reference points? Fuel on board was limited.
Using Compass roses,speed of the planes and turns
Air Craft Carries.
They used Radio Navigation, Automatic Direction Finder (ADF) tuned into broadcast radio stations on Oahu.
They just tuned in a commercial AM station and the receiver in the airplanes have a needle that points to the transmitter.
This system of navigation is being phased out as it is considered redundant and too expensive to maintain.
GPS has made ADF’s obsolete.
Its not just gps. Theres various navigatio. Alternatives all with their own satellites. You have: GPS, GLONASS, GALLILEO, BEIDOU.
I’m glad that I Live now
You haven't mentioned the Non Directional Becons.
Basically, pilots navigated their planes like sail boat during the early stages of aviation.
Might as well stick with what you know I guess
It seems you've missed:
SHORAN (RSBN in Ru)
Omega (Alpha in Ru)
Gee Navigation system
NDB and ADF systems
As well as AM radio station ;p
Yes pilot can tuned to AM radio station and listen to football match using NDB navigation reciever lmao
What is that…SHORAN?
What is that…SHORAN?
And what is Omega, Gee, NDB, etc?
@@_Breakdown shoran: short range navigation system, use beacon and slave-master parabolic navigation. If coupled with vertical aid, it is called PMDG, similar to ILS. As far as I know (in flight sim at least) the neadle had similar function as ADF-NDB system
@@_Breakdown Gee is parabolic navigation preceding LORAN and SHORAN made by british, work in parabolic navigation way. NDB is Non directional beacon, you fly into or from the beacon (similarly beacon-player relation if you play minecraft) but instead of light, it transmit radio wave (both are EM wave after all...)
Omega was the parabolic navigation to have worldwide coverage, and navigating it require you to know the phase of each frequency of each station, and triangulate it between stations, similar to LORAN but at longer ranges
You forgot to mention inertial navigation (INS)
What is that? INS...?
@@_Breakdown Inertial Navigation System
Now you see they used their engines
Why does nobody ever ever talk about LORAN
Or
CONTAINER
Or
CIS-12
Or
PLUTO
Suppose in a modern flight the GPS fails and it is a clear day. Would the pilot be able to find any airport to land, you think ?
Now especially in the middle east and eastern Europe we experience GPS jamming (so for some flights no GPS) , so we often use IRS systems. Moreover you are in radar controlled airspace. Not only you be able to safely continue your flight, you will land safely at your destination.
Planes used yo mama as a landmark to help fly before GPS
always
Watch FOR ALL MAN KIND
Planes fly the same as always, they navigate differently. 😉
Honestly (and as I'm sure you can understand as a fellow UA-camr) the title mostly comes down to SEO since more people are going to search for the word 'fly' than 'navigate'
@@EverythingScience I know, I was just giving you a hard time. Great video, deserves more views, and you should have more subs.
The Circular slide rule. Still used by G.A. Pilots the world over.
do not show this video to a flat-earth believer, he may have a crisis
Nice video but the voice is a bit annoying, maybe try to improve that, other than that, it's really good looking forward to the future videos :)
it isnt annoying at all
I presume you have a russian accent... are you immigrant from russia? Or maybe one of the post-soviet countries....
This accent sounds more like American English.
LORAN is not pronounced "Lauren" lol. really ruined the video.
Good video but get someone else to do the narrating.
Radio wave goes only straight Line, the Earth is flat.
great video!!
Glad you liked the video!