Now published - a demonstration of Astro Navigation in MSFS

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Wow!!

Looking forward to it! This is the kind of stuff that really makes the Sim Community so cool to be part of

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Noooo


I really believed I would never have to do this again! It’s all fun and games, until it’s the only way to get home!

I would be excited if they could simulate the growing pit in your stomach as the cloud cover prevents a clear view and the fuel gauges are bumping bingo.

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Yikes
I too had hoped I’d left this stuff behind! I will always remember my first flight across the Pacific with mostly just the “sun gun” to keep the gyros aligned and to provide position information. I was elated and relieved when Hawaii finally appeared on the radar!

Seriously, this should be fun, and an eye-opener for the “gps generation”.

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Oh yes!
I flew Twin Otters in the high Arctic (and Antarctic). Compass was nigh useless. Magnetic north was southeast of us for crying out loud.
I would have given both nuts for a magenta line when the weather moved in.
The last time I saw one was in the 737-200. We were ski equipped and went lots of places we used to go with the Twotter.

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In the Arctic, we would set the compasses to gyro mode and set them to TN with the sun gun at TOC if departing from the south. If departing from a northern runway, align them with the runway on takeoff and refine with the sextant at TOC.

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We did the same in the 737 but in the Twotter we seldom got high enough. Winter was usually OK cause most days were clear blue but the rest of the year
 not so much. Fortunately most of the research guys had pretty good beacons. Lots of RDF navigation.

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Wow over Artic horizons in a Twin Otter!
I regret not taking that Antarctica contract gig😔

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Nah, never feel sad about that. That’s a contract you can happily let go, after you did some work there. I only remember a handful of trips where I saw much of anything other than my breath. Back and forth from Argentina. Once you are an hour out you just want to go home. I remember Amundsen–Scott station being the most desolate, unforgiving environment to fly in. Our fav joke was that “if sh1t goes south here, at least it doesn’t have far to go.”

The Arctic though
 That was amazing most of the time

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Love it! A great addition for a sim that is quite good rendering stars.

And users here complain about bumpy runways. Hah!
Warning: You’ll want to turn the sound down. It’s recorded sitting in a diesel transporter.

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Absolutely Great comments 
too many people are losing track of what a great simulator we have and just getting on with enjoying it


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I am very excited to check this out on July 2nd! Is this the type of navigation used in Amelia Earhart’s ill fated voyage as well? Was it used in combination with radio navigation, perhaps? I seem to remember Earhart whistling a tone into her radio to help find her bearing, but I have no idea how that would aid navigation. It would be very cool to understand how celestial navigation differs from early radio and how they both differ from today’s navigation technology.

I learned celestial nav on a submarine (!) crossing the Atlantic on the surface. My lessons were cut short when one of the lookouts threw the sextant overboard thinking it was gash


Hello,
Thank you for sharing that with the community! I put your post Third Party Addon Discussion, which is where any add-ons and mods should be discussed.

I’ve been wondering if Soviet autosextants could at some point be part of this sim.

Yes this is the same type used by Amelia & Earhart. However, on their flight is was mostly cloudy, and that was presumably a main reason to get lost. The radio direction finding did not work as advertised, and so they never found Howland.

Ah nice - and you will see that airborne celestial is significantly different from maritime celestial !

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Yes, airborne cel nav is much different than maritime. No matter how frustrated you got with the poor results you had managed
there was no practical way to throw the sextant overboard! :slight_smile:

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Oh but we wished