Has anyone developed a LORAN simulation (Loran C) add-on for FSX ?  I know it was "laid to rest"  in the real world in ~2010 but I enjoy

flying the older AC and would like to have a LORAN system for them if there's one available out here in cyber space somewhere.

Best to all,

Ken

None that I know of.

13 hours ago, Elsmoko said:

Has anyone developed a LORAN simulation (Loran C) add-on for FSX ?  I know it was "laid to rest"  in the real world in ~2010 but I enjoy

flying the older AC and would like to have a LORAN system for them if there's one available out here in cyber space somewhere.

Best to all,

Ken

 

55 minutes ago, Bjoern said:

None that I know of.

Hi Ken,

Ditto with Bjoern...

I've used the Northstar Loran in real life - what a miserable and clunky interface - much like the Trimble interface Digital Aviation included in their Piper Cheyenne... The Northstar was accurate enough though - drove my Century I autopilot before I had moving maps...

Regards,
Scott

My first use of LORAN C was from STL to TEB with several stops in between, back in 1986.  Yes, clunky is how to best define it. 

Has anyone developed a LORAN A simulation? This would simulate LORAN before the digital computations provided by LORAN C, and would replicate the use of LORAN in the '40s and '50s through to the introduciton of Doppler, INS, and Omega navigation. 

Thanks,

Rich Boll

Hi Rich,

Hah - used Omega on my Submarine in the 80's/90's - 7 stations world wide 1 in Hawaii IIRC - the actual fixes were rough - we had NAVSAT (Doppler Shift) as well which predated GPS - the satellites were in polar orbit vs geosynchronous - so you had to know when to "catch the pass" - for our most accurate fix source...

Regards,
Scott

I used one in helicopters on Canada’s east coast between 1989 and 1992. Thought I’d died and gone to heaven.

4 hours ago, richjb2 said:

Has anyone developed a LORAN A simulation?

Again: No.

Holy-Moley! LORAN.  Now there's a term I haven't heard in years.  We use to use that when we were first designing cellular systems for the USA in the 90's.  😄

Learned about LORAN while I was in Coast Guard Nav School.  Our C-130s in Sacramento was equipped with it.  Thankfully never had to use it as we also had more modern means of finding our way around, including INS and GPS.

LORAN was as clunky as others have suggested.  The nav station wasn't anywhere near roomy enough to use the charts comfortably.  What we had was more suited for marine navigation, where you have the space to work and are moving much slower anyway.

Hi Ken,

Although there is no LORAN simulation available, if you like flying older aircraft and want to simulate transoceanic navigation as it was in the 40s and 50s, you may be interested in a nice little piece of freeware called the Weather Ship Gauge.

You may already know about it, but, in case you don’t, this addon simulates the signals broadcast by weather ships (so-called ocean stations) which were situated at a number of assigned positions in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.  Aircraft could use a loop antenna to get a bearing on these signals and use them for navigation purposes over the ocean. The signals had a maximum range of about 400-500 miles and when a signal is received a weather report transmitted from the ship is also shown on the gauge and there is also an option to show the weathership’s LORAN position. In addition to the weathership signals, the signals transmitted by a number of shore based HF stations built before the Second World War to aid transoceanic flying boat navigation are also simulated.

I have used this addon with the great A2A Constellation on a number of transatlantic trips and it works well. Although there is no distance measurement and the navigation accuracy using these signals is not usually precise enough to bring the aircraft directly over the weatherships, it is sufficient to fly a reasonably accurate course between Europe and North America and then use one of the shore based HF stations (or other land based navigation aids) to coast in. Very occasionally it’s possible to tune into 2 stations simultaneously and the bearings from both can then be used to triangulate your position. 

I think it brings a nice bit of additional realism to transoceanic flying in aircraft  of that era!

Bill

Quote

 

Thanks to all for the very interesting messages.  And thank you for the tips about the Weather Ship Gauge Bill.  I'll

be after it ~:)

  In early 70's I was assigned to a US Navy EKA-3B detachment attached to USS Hancock.  I believe that our planes

were equipped with Loran C.  I know that Sextants were always aboard.  Not fer sher,  but I'm thinkin' that equipment

wasn't used much except for the long range flights >  "transpacs" from the states to Philippines and back. 

Best to all,

Ken

As an ‘airport kid’ in Shannon in the 60s, I managed to wangle visits to quite a few aircraft in those minimum security days and the function and operation of the LORAN equipment in the cockpit of a 707 was explained to me on one of those visits. It was fairly complex and I suspect any attempt at an accurate replication of this for simulation purposes would not be easy. If I remember correctly they also still had a sextant built into a sort of periscope for  celestial navigation as a standby!

Bill

On ‎8‎/‎15‎/‎2018 at 12:25 PM, scottb613 said:

Hi Rich,

Hah - used Omega on my Submarine in the 80's/90's - 7 stations world wide 1 in Hawaii IIRC - the actual fixes were rough - we had NAVSAT (Doppler Shift) as well which predated GPS - the satellites were in polar orbit vs geosynchronous - so you had to know when to "catch the pass" - for our most accurate fix source...

Regards,
Scott

The GNS 500, the precursor to the GNS XL and GNS XLs which are modeled in some older FS addons, was the one we used.  I had to go into DR mode just a few times, usually in heavy precip.  We used them to fly airways, point-to-point routes, and conventional SIDs and STARs.  The RNAV SIDs and STARs of today were not around then, but the conventional SIDs and STARs are still around (e.g., the Wilkes Barre STAR into TEB and LENDY into JFK/LGA/EWR.  

TWA used Omega on their 707s instead of retrofitting with INS like Pan Am.  

Speaking of submarines, I believe the GNS 500 would also use the US Navy's VLF stations as an additional ground station along with the OMEGA stations.  We couldn't read your familygrams, but we use them to find out where we were!

Thanks!

Rich