Navy Returns to Compasses and Pencils To Help Avoid Collisions at Sea (nytimes.com) 206
An anonymous reader shares a report: Urgent new orders went out earlier this month for United States Navy warships that have been plagued by deadly mishaps this year. More sleep and no more 100-hour workweeks for sailors. Ships steaming in crowded waters like those near Singapore and Tokyo will now broadcast their positions as do other vessels. And ships whose crews lack basic seamanship certification will probably stay in port until the problems are fixed.[...] The orders issued recently by the Navy's top officer for ships worldwide, Vice Adm. Thomas S. Rowden, drew on the lessons that commanders gleaned from a 24-hour fleetwide suspension of operations last month to examine basic seamanship, teamwork and other fundamental safety and operational standards. Collectively, current and former officers said, the new rules mark several significant cultural shifts for the Navy's tradition-bound fleets. At least for the moment, safety and maintenance are on par with operational security, and commanders are requiring sailors to use old-fashioned compasses, pencils and paper to help track potential hazards (alternative source), as well as reducing a captain's discretion to define what rules the watch team follows if the captain is not on the ship's bridge. "Rowden is stomping his foot and saying, 'We've got to get back to basics,'" said Vice Adm.
Sigh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Please explain why US Navy warhsips have crews who "lack basic seamanship certification".
I mean.. I understand that they might not have the piece of paper, the same way they might not have passed the official driving test to drive a tank, but surely... surely at some point... someone gave them the equivalent skills and/or sent them on the same kinds of training such that it would be a cinch to acquire such certification?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
It's good the Navy does this, but the corporate world is just as bad. Hiring people based on some certificate covering simplistic skills but which don't certify for competence of deep understanding, versus hiring someone with expertise who knows the fundamentals and can build on top of those.
Re:Sigh. (Score:5, Insightful)
GPS can be hacked (sidebar: Why the actual FUCK are signals from U.S. GPS SVs not encrypted to prevent hacking?); a magnetic compass, not so much (or at least, not at a distance).
Are we lowering the bar, in all aspects of our society and not just within the military? Very possibly.
Re: (Score:3)
The work gulag runs the bridge. (Score:4, Interesting)
It's so much more than that. The bridge is manned by deck, which are the same guys who make the ship pretty and they also have their hands in a bunch of other shit.... but the most important thing to the pissbaby CO is how much paint he can get these kids to put on the ship so the admiral will say "OH BOY THE SHIP LOOKS GREAT". They make these guys sweep and paint nonstop until some of them kill themselves no joke.
The most relaxing times for these guys are lunch, watch, pooping, and the few hours a day they get for sleep.. and if they have watch during sleep time.. they simply get no sleep! For them free time is measured in minutes a day, they sleep and poop at the same time. It's an absolutely unimaginable way to live. Doing a watch that would be the same as a normal civilian workday might have been the only time these guys weren't doing hard labor in the past 24 hours.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Let me lay it out for you. If you join the Navy and get any kind of decent ASVAB score you will get assigned to a service 'A' school and become a technician. If you don't you get sent to a ship's deck division, where your job is to clean and paint and stand deck watches.
So basically the deck division consists of the least capable people on the ship. Every officer who stands Officer of the Deck has another job, except for the deck officer who is in charge of deck division. These other officers supervise cook
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's not being overridden it's inaccurate and a PITA to use compared to civilian stuff so people only use it when they have to.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Please explain why US Navy warhsips have crews who "lack basic seamanship certification".
This jumped out at me, too.
Re: (Score:3)
Please explain why US Navy warhsips have crews who "lack basic seamanship certification".
This jumped out at me, too.
Reduced time and money for training are the culprits.
More training is the solution.
Re:Sigh. (Score:5, Funny)
All I ask for is a tall ship and a satellite constellation to steer her by...
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Sigh. (Score:4, Insightful)
And will those apps simulate the sun as well so you can bring it down to the horizon?
Let's be clear in any case what problem we're solving. A sextant is an essential tool (along with a chronometer) in determining latitude and longitude -- position on the Earth. This is where Mercator projection maps are handy: it helps you choose a heading that will get you somewhere you can't see.
What's going on here is that ships are running into each other in crowded sea lanes. So somehow the instruments available to the people piloting these ships plus their own eyes aren't enough to prevent a collisions that old-school pilots would have avoided. And I'm fairly sure this is not because it's not physically possible to process the information. It may be that reliance on technology to do most of the hard work has reduced the pilot's habitual engagement and awareness.
There is another solution, which is to have the ships completely robotically piloted. You'd still train pilots to handle ships manually for unusual situation, but you wouldn't count on having perfect human attention directing the ship 7x24.
Re: (Score:2)
It could also be that the number of ships in these areas is much larger than old school pilots ever had to cope with.
Its like more traffic leads to more auto accidents. Insurance companies know this, which is why your address is a major determining factor in insurance rates.
We have larger population today than we did before AIS and GPS. We have a different economic landscape thanks to globalism that means a lot more commercial traffic out there.
That got answered previously (Score:4, Interesting)
At least for officers, the basic navigational and shiphandling courses got replaced by a dvd set.
I'm not kidding.
Re:That got answered previously (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Sigh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Please explain why US Navy warhsips have crews who "lack basic seamanship certification".
I read an article, I think on gcaptain.com, about this not long ago. Basically, it said that they just don't bother training them any more, because of cost-cutting measures in the late 2000s. They used to have some school they'd send them to to learn basic seamanship, but because of Congress's cost-cutting (Congress wants to spend lots of $$$ on weapons systems and shipbuilding, but they don't want to allow the Navy to spend any money on training), they closed the school and replaced it with a self-taught course on a bunch of CD-ROMs that sailors were expected to do on their own, *at sea*, while already way too busy with all their regular shipboard duties.
Ultimately, I think the blame probably lies with Congress. The military really isn't able to run itself that much and make its own decisions for how to do things and fund things; it's highly micro-managed by Congress.
Re: (Score:2)
That is both horrifying and scandalous. Really, how much could real training cost? Certainly less than a couple of cruise missiles. It's horrifying to think that our Navy has practically no one who can pilot a ship on their one. It's inconceivable to think you could have a whole bridge crew that doesn't know what they are doing! Everyone should have at least a basic course on navigation and seamanship. Every officer, at the very least, should be able to navigate by sextant, compass, and longitude recordings
Re: (Score:2)
It's not just the lack of training, there's also a lack of sleep, which can probably be chalked up to being understaffed.
What are they teaching these crews,--anything at all?
They're teaching the crews with a self-taught course on CD-ROM, which they have to do at sea, but they don't because they only sleep 3 hours a night.
Really, how much could real training cost? Certainly less than a couple of cruise missiles.
Training costs too much. The cost of missiles is irrelevant, because that comes from a different
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Article I Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution has not one but three clauses that enumerate Congress's authority over the military, including this one:
Back in the 18th century, military coups were more common than they are today. In fact the Articles of Confederati
Re: (Score:2)
A friggin' CD-ROM course to learn how to pilot a ship...Amazing! Is it narrated by Troy McClure [wikipedia.org], too?
Some heads need to roll for this... seriously! This is beyond unacceptable.
Re: (Score:2)
Really, how much could real training cost? Certainly less than a couple of cruise missiles
The cruise missiles yield profit to the manufacturers, who lobby Congress to buy more cruise missiles. The Navy's internal training departments don't have lobbyists.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe they need external vendors to train them then?
Re: (Score:2)
Every officer, at the very least, should be able to navigate by sextant, compass, and longitude recordings based on speed and direction.
I am not sure that is the problem or solution. Its not like when given the order "navigate to the port of Gibraltar" ships are ending up in Portsmouth, because crews cant plot a course across the Atlantic. This is about collision with other traffic in busy places where vessels are expected to be passing close by each other. I will admit to having never been in the navy or merchant marine but I do sail and I can use a sextant. I don't see how it would help with this problem.
I am not in the habit of navig
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, the maps would have to get updated pretty often to show other ships on them.
I suspect a few people are confusing this story with the one about the Russians hacking GPS.
Re: (Score:2)
I so wish I had points.
Re: (Score:2)
Captain Ron: "The best way to find out...is to get her out on the ocean. If anything is going to happen, it's going to happen out there." [wikiquote.org]
Re:Sigh. (Score:5, Insightful)
The OP has a valid point. If someone is training to get certified and is shadowed by someone who is certified, that's one thing. But if the bridge is filled with people that are not certified, that's a huge breakdown in the chain of command. The gov't spends HOW MUCH money on defense, yet we have untrained people on deck looking after a billion dollar boat? That's not what the taxpayers are expecting.
Re: (Score:2)
That's not what the taxpayers are expecting.
As a taxpayer, I can assure you that for the past 15 years I expect nothing short of deception, negligence, and behaviors arguably interpretable as war crimes.
Re: (Score:3)
Sure. And you should expect competence in the military, at the level of basic training, marksmanship, transport, and seamanship where appropriate, and discipline. The Navy has a problem with this - bridge crews not paying enough attention, captains not on the bridge when the ship is in congested waters, and the obvious problem of the bridge command structure failing. Time for a reset.
Going back to paper, pencils, compasses, etc. is a good step. Get the sextants out and take sightings. Throw the sounding li
Re:Sigh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ships steaming in crowded waters like those near Singapore and Tokyo will now broadcast their positions as do other vessels.
So when the entire world is relying on AIS to avoid collisions, the US navy isn't providing that in the middle of busy shipping lanes? It's a fscking aircraft carrier, how invisible is that going to be when it's going through the Singapore strait? Turn on AIS in busy areas and you won't need to go back to pencil and paper...
Re:Sigh. (Score:5, Insightful)
The fear is that somehow an enemy could use that positioning data to target a U.S. Navy ship and use it in a preemptive attack.
I agree with you in terms of a navy ship in the middle of a major shipping channel when they aren't in the middle of a war operation though. Sort of akin to a police car that shouldn't have his lights on or doing other thing than simply being an ordinary commuter in ordinary traffic when they are traveling from one point to another.
A similar situation happens with air traffic, where military jets often don't turn on transponders to indicate position or other normal transponder information if they are on a war footing. Yes, it is dangerous and something they need to deal with as well. On the other hand, the USAF does have times those military jets do turn on transponders if they want to have civilian aviation stay out of the way or if the military jets are trying to play nice and friendly with civilian air traffic.
Perhaps the last couple of decades of being in a continuous global war is something that is getting out of hand.
Re: (Score:2)
It's because the Defense Budget is a jobs program. It's not about training better soldiers/sailors/marines/airmen, but that M1-Abrams Tanks are built in a factory in some town that otherwise has no economy so they keep pumping them out even though the Pentagon* says they don't want or need any more than they already have.
*Weird-looking building. Four walls and a spare. Monument to Murphy's Law. (obligatory MASH reference)
Re: (Score:2)
That's because the current model is M1A2.
Re: Sigh. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That is exactly why. The export version that is being produced to deliver on existing contracts is M1A2.
Re: (Score:3)
has no bearing on knowing the rules of the road, being able to shift gears in a standard, hill start, etc.
This is very tangential, but might be slightly relevant: in cars, a lot of those skills are largely obsolete. For instance, not many cars in the US come with a manual transmission any more: they're much harder to resell (unless it's a sports car), and automatics now have significantly better fuel economy than sticks (largely due to differences in gearing: automatics have taller gears at the top end, so
Re: Sigh. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
and, umm, how did those ships get where they are? Don't think some random dude parks those things :O
One hopes they included: LOOK OUT THE WINDOWS as part of the procedures also ! Don't want those pesky cargo ships sneaking up on you.
My interpretation of the summary is that this is precisely the problem.
Re: (Score:3)
Next up (Score:2)
Not to be outdone by the Navy, the army will go back to walking and emergency ration packs.
Those guys think they're going back to the basics but they are still sailing on their big modern ships with their fancy kitchens. We're real men, we're truly going back to the basics.
Re: (Score:2)
Break out the muskets!
Re: (Score:2)
muskets! What are you gay? Real men just beat their enemies with a big rock!
Ridiculous -- why not enhance the use AIS & ra (Score:3)
Busy shipping lanes are too busy to monitor and track with paper and pencil.
Modern shipping works because ships are able to use technology like AIS and radar to track other vessels accurately and in real time. Navigation systems -- chotplotting, AIS, radar, autopilot, and weather information -- can be tied together in real time, allowing a ship's heading and course to be altered in real time based on actual conditions at sea.
I can definitely see the added advantages of humans with binoculars to spot closer in traffic and validate radar tracking and AIS data, but the idea that they'll just do all this in real time with paper and pencil is as silly as the SEC announcing it will combat stock fraud by switching back to pencils and paper spreadsheets.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
What if you can't trust your electronic instruments?
Presumably part of the reason you have lookouts is for this reason, but if you *always* believe your instruments to be unreliable then your navigation is limited to what you can visually see.
I'm not saying they should only rely on AIS & radar, obviously a military ship should validate those systems' targets which should be in visual range. But those electronic systems can actually do a great job of predicting potential collisions, especially AIS. It's literally a broadcast of a ship's position, headin
Re: (Score:2)
AIS is great on a ship until you end up at Moscow Airport. The fact that the Navy didn't use it in busy shipping lanes previously seems quite stupid, and if their ships have radar absorbing properties it becomes all the more important.
Re: (Score:2)
The thing is that with modern navigational systems, it's pretty easy to detect GPS spoofing. Let's say it happens.. Suddenly, the data coming off your GPS unit isn't going to match up with the rest of the sensors installed on the ship. In addition to the GPS, ships carry gyrocompasses, speed logs, and other sensors.
Modern navigational suites are supposed to compare the SOG derived from the GPS with the STW (Speed Through Water) from the speed log. If they're more than, say, 6kt out from each other (to allow
Re: (Score:2)
The GPs point was that other satcom systems are not omni-directional but rather require you to point the antennae at the bird; which you know how to do as a function of where the satellite should be and where you are currently. If your knowledge of position is based on GPS and its spoofed by a large amount you will not be able to properly point your other communications systems.
Re: (Score:2)
GPS has an omni-directional antenna. You don't know the angle to the satellites. GPS coordinates are based off the difference in time from the various satellites the receiver gets signal from.
Right, but the Ku-Band and X-Band communications antennas are highly directional, and calculate their lookangles to the satellite based on the known position of the satellite and the GPS position on the ground. Furthermore, many TDMA based modems depend on knowing the precise position of the transmitter so that they can synchronize the transmissions properly. if the ground position doesn't match the time-of-flight for the signal, collisions start happening and error lights go on.
Re: (Score:2)
Right, but think about how GPS actually works. Each satellite is transmitting a precise time signal, and the receiver determines its position through trilateration. It basically measures the distance to each of the satellites in orbit, based on the path delay between the satellite and the receiver. Spoofing works by replacing the signals received from the satellite with one of earth origin.
What you can't do when spoofing a position is replicate the geometry (and thus differences in path delay) that makes GP
Re: (Score:3)
With all that said, though, AIS & Radar massively improve safety by radically improving your situational awareness, especially in foul weather. I was sailing up in the Broughton Archipelago. On a couple of occasions we got stuck out in dense fog, where we could see maybe 150m or so. We kept an appropriate watch, with the other guy onboard maintaining a bow watch, emitting appropriate fog signals, etc... but the radar was a huge help, especially to ensure we remained in channel.
On that same trip, we were
Drawback of automation (Score:5, Informative)
In the same way, if you know there's a computer system which tracks your ship's location and the location of all other ships, and automatically sounds an alarm if it detects a collision course, then you're more likely to slack at your job and start reading slashdot or the latest J.K. Rowling book. OTOH if there is no computer system, and you and ONLY YOU are personally responsible for tracking your and that other ship's position and course to make sure you don't collide, then you're going to have 100% of your attention devoted to that task. Double or multiple redundancy works for equipment, but not always for people.
Re:Drawback of automation (Score:5, Insightful)
However, there ARE ways to enforce accuracy.... Make the bridge crew enter their manual position observations and calculations and then routinely judge the accuracy of the manual log with the automatic position logs. If there are variances, they will need to be explained. If you are not accurate enough with your manual entries, you don't keep your qualification.
I always wondered why the Navy gave up the celestial navigation qualification requirement. Never made sense to me.
Celestial Navigation is being taught again (Score:2, Interesting)
on the Great Lakes.
caught that in an article last year, Celestial navigation has made it back into the curriculum. Now factor in a 3 to 4 year window before you see any results of that into the system (training enough people in the arts, & getting them in enough mustard in chief positions, yada yada. in other words it takes time for solutions to take effect, unlike. Hence it is gonna take a year or two before the navy finally changes course to a core competent naval force,,,, again. Because in the long
Re: (Score:3)
Sure, but the idea here is to make a system that requires two or more people to concur that the activity got done. This is commonly done for critical activities.
I fully get that no system is fool proof and that a sufficiently motivated group could bypass it. However, my point here is that there are effective ways to make the gaming of a system harder than compliance and/or design a system that makes it nearly impossible to get away with gaming the system because eventually you will be detected. Such sys
Re: (Score:3)
In 3001, Arthur C. Clarke postulated a future in which nobody really understood how anything works.
This is entirely plausible to me given my experience growing up along with computers. I started learning about computers in the 1970s by messing around with primitive ICs; I learned to do stuff like build adders out of flip-flops. And I learned about each new technology when it came in; I programmed in assembly language on some of the earliest popular 8 bit microprocessors, but also in FORTRAN and LISP on ea
Arthur C. Clarke (Score:2)
I haven't read Clarke this decade, but I think 'The City and the Stars' might be somewhat closer to a description of "a future in which nobody really understood how anything works."
I'm deeply impressed by your geek credentials. What sorts of things do you get into these days?
Re: (Score:3)
That theory is axiomatic - the more people checking the less likely that errors made up front will be caught. We have know that for decades, but "adding another review" has such appeal to management that you never get rid of them. "Let's get more eyes on the problem" just ensures that the mistakes are codified forever, because it becomes so onerous to change something (and take weeks/months/years to get through the review process) that you try to work around it somehow, even if you find the problem.
Re: (Score:2)
OTOH if there is no computer system, and you and ONLY YOU are personally responsible for tracking your and that other ship's position and course to make sure you don't collide, then you're going to have 100% of your attention devoted to that task.
Did you miss the part about 100 hour work-weeks? If you're relying on people to be very sharp for a job, that's not how you accomplish that. I very much doubt that most people can focus 100% attention for half that much time, and probably even less than that.
Attention is a commodity with finite resource. Brains need to rest. I'd bet that this factor alone was a major cause of these incidents. If they do what you're suggesting and don't significantly adjust the workload, that's just adding fuel to t
Re: (Score:2)
Navy regulations are written in blood ... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
An uncle who served on destroyers long ago told me that "Navy regulations are written in blood". That regulations and training say this is the proper way to do something and you will do it in no other way. That the "proper way" was determined by people dying when it was done otherwise. That some ways of doing things are more than "tradition".
The right way.
The wrong way.
The NAVY way.
planing for a North Korea attack where GPS may not (Score:2)
planing for a North Korea attack where GPS may not work right in some worst case scenarios.
Re: (Score:2)
He's not talking about planing wood, silly. He's obviously talking about hydroplaning [wikipedia.org]. They're going to replace all their destroyers with these...
Ships are jokes nowadays (Score:3)
"...will now broadcast their positions as do other vessels. "
So the 'other vessels' will have to take care of avoiding them, what about lighthouses and islands and other dangerous pieces of 'land'?
And they are supposed to notice missiles coming at them from hundreds of miles at supersonic speeds?
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, my family was Air Force and not Navy. However I can imagine at least one reason why Navy ships might not have been transmitting position information.
During times of conflict you don't want to be doing this. It's great for your team and it's even greater for the opposition, during a war, to know where you are.
In places and at times when there is no conflict however, perhaps cooperating with civilian locator systems might be a good idea. Ultimately the Navy needs to determine how that will work.
All it takes . . . (Score:2)
All it takes is for people to pay attention.
Our "HUGE" push to automated control (Score:3)
So where does that leave the "RAPID AT ALL COSTS PUSH" to autonomous unmanned ships at sea, airliners in the air, heavy trucks on the roads and cars with no drivers or controls for manual use.
I am not against these things, I just think the path to get there is longer than most think. Since you often have to alter code for the exceptions that were not predicted or expected during the design and testing phases.
Out of the box solution (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
^Minor fact check, seems like the item about hull damage from being hit by a champagne bottle might be a hoax. Near as I could tell it originally came from a parody news site ( https://www.duffelblog.com/ [duffelblog.com] )
Fair enough, I picked that as an example for dramatic effect, but the LCS vessels have been notorious for hull issues and damage.
Where DOES the money go? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's hilarious to read comments and posts about how this is due to "budget cutting". These cuts are not perceptible at taxpayer level. https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com] ...yes, there's a "drop" in there from 2011-2016, but I believe that's in overseas adventuring. Far more importantly, the "drop" is to the 2008 budget, more than double the 2000 budget, when there were few of these collisions. It's now nearly $2000 per American citizen. Add up all spending on Pentagon, DOE (nukes), DVA, and the spy/surveillance services, debt servicing, and it's a trillion a year, nearly $10,000 per household.
And yet, there isn't enough money for the PEOPLE in the American military, not even enough for their really basic training. Is is really all blown on overpriced weapons systems? Can't you include training in the weapons-system budget or something? Sneak it in.
Exercise in futile (Score:2)
In digital world, your security and privacy can be compromised by others even if you do all due diligence. Many of my friends and relatives have my birthdate, phone, address, email, anniversary etc in their contacts. They readily give permission to read contacts to every imaginable app. How do I keep this info private? I can't.
Navy can go to pencil and drawing board, but how will it prevent other ships getting fooled by GPS spoofing? The only benefit I see here is that they will be able to file a civil suit
Lack of training, not automation problems (Score:2)
NPR had an interesting take [npr.org] on this recently. It seems that seamen have received less and less training over the last few years, an effort to save money. Now the chickens are coming home to roost.
admirals now googling "How to Use a Sextant"?? (Score:2)
it does not matter how fancy your nav stuff is worst case you should be able to run with
"Is the Sun Coming UP?? PUT IT ON THE LEFT"
and if you have to post seaman with Lanterns then a Captain might want to be current on the correct colors and such
The only solution... (Score:3)
... is to make the Navy ship hulls and engines stronger, so they can just drive though any other boat.
Then they can just pilot around at ramming speed all the time!
Quit pissing, Yuri... (Score:2)
Give me a stopwatch and a map and I'll fly the Alps in a plane with no windows.
GPS denial is a mode they plan for (Score:2)
GPS denial or GPS spoofing are very real and very much in view of military planners, trainers, etc.
Maybe some ship captains were not keeping up with training for these cases as they should have been?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
So it's the qwerty of the code world. Maybe it was designed to prevent printers/typewriters from jamming to.
Re: (Score:3)
Morse may have been standard training at the Naval Academy but I don't think all enlisted were taught morse. Signalmen and radiomen certainly, but others, not so su
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, you just convinced me. I looked up the Wikipedia page for tap code, spend about 30 seconds looking at it, and now I can say I know how to use tap code, because the table is so simple (the only "hard" thing to memorize is that K shares C's space). By contrast, I don't know Morse Code, even though I had a little interest in it when I was young. All I remember now is how to signal SOS.
Definitely a good example of simplicity and ease-of-learning trumping efficiency.
Re: (Score:2)
Hikers shmikers. Every time I use my GPS to navigate in my car and can feel my brain cells rotting away...
Re: (Score:2)
I don't; it offloads something that used to be a pain in the ass, and adds clairvoyance too.
I remember driving without GPS very well; I've spent more years without it than with it, after all. Driving any place that I wasn't familiar with was a PITA: you had to get verbal directions from people, which were completely unreliable, only worked from one direction, etc. Or you had to study maps and try to figure out exactly where "123 Main St" is on a road that runs for miles, and frequently has the same street
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, once in a while it gets confused, but it's usually pretty obvious. That's a lot better than the "old days" where I had to drive around in circles looking for some little road to turn onto, or figure out what someone meant by the "3rd right turn", or try to find some street address.
Re: (Score:2)
Google Maps does not tell you where there will be a traffic jam, it tells you where there IS a traffic jam. Unless you are either IN the jam (in which case it is too late) or VERY close to the jam, that information is near useless.
Just yesterday, on a long trip with friends, I had two experiences with Google Maps. First, my friend is driving on a 4-lane highway, and traffic comes to a stop. I look at Maps, and it shows the problem is construction about a mile ahead. But Maps helpfully suggests an alterna
B52 pilots and Cessna 150 pilots (Score:5, Interesting)
When the navigation computer has to reboot on the B-52 bomber, the crew breaks out the slide ruler and map to figure out where they're going.
Yes, but the E6B slide rule is not something that ever went obsolete like traditional slide rules. The E6B was still used in ground school in the 1990s, might still be used in classrooms today. And many pilots still carry one in their bag, next to the paper chart and a flashlight, just in case. Its not a B-52 or a military thing. We're talking Cessna 150 pilots too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Good navigators ALWAYS have a map out with their last known position and expected flight path marked on it. I don't care WHO you are or what kind of navigation system you have, good practice demands that a pilot keep situational awareness as sharp as possible, meaning that you are keeping track of where you are, the status of your equipment and where the nearest emergency diversion airfield might be.
Re: (Score:3)
No, good navigators always have CHART out. However, the navigator has been replaced on most aircraft with a GPS.
Re: (Score:2)
Touché
Chart, map... Not many know the difference..