I had thought that celestial navigation was reserved for the military...only because of its skill and difficulty. My father was a navigator on C-130's in the Air Force for about 8 or 9 years, back in the 60's I believe. He's talked quite a bit about navigating, using sextants and so forth-in fact I think he still has a big box of his stuff in his attic. Our wood (i.e. soft finsih) family table in my parents house has the locations of drop zones, etc. scribbled all over it, with courses, headings etc...kinda neat. He's now big time into GPS, I'm sure he wishes he had it back then!~Skyy

>Were there any commerical (i.e. pax) aircraft capable of>making the west coast jump to Hawaii prior to the 707? I'd be>interested in knowing how they did indeed navigate.~~~Interesting indeed. I was a soldier passenger (along with about 50 others soldiers) on "Flying Tiger" airlines, (courtesy of the U.S. Army) from San Francisco to Tokyo in 1960. I always marveled at the way the crew hit Honolulu from San Francisco. (In a Consellation. I can't remember the military designation for that aircraft.) I was really amazed and marveled though, at how they hit Wake Island from Honolulu.Regards,Don Schaaf

S

You are dead on, Mark.Additionally, many vintage aircraft had ports where they could shoot the sun or stars with a sextant. My R4D has just such a beast but I can't fit in the plane to do the shot!!!