Dave Bitzer and Mark Beaumont are known
to many 'classic' aircraft fans for their various freeware
releases for the FS2004 Douglas DC-3. These include improved
air dynamics, fuel management devices, panels, kneeboards
and other work. Dave and Mark have also produced unofficial
modifications for the latest FS2004/FS2002 MAAM-SIM DC-3.
Now Beaumont & Bitzer are delighted to announce,
after many months' work, the release of a first for FS in
the form of an aircraft 'bubble' sextant. Based on the typical
RAF Mk.IX variant, this gauge can be used with any FS2004
aircraft, enabling realistic celestial navigation within the
simulation. Included are a comprehensive browser-based manual
and other references.
As travel by air developed and matured, navigation
over long distances also developed and improved. In the early
days, however, air navigation essentially used ship navigation
techniques adapted for aircraft. Without "landmarks", the
navigators used Ded Reckoning (DR) and the stars. Celestial
or Astronomical Navigation provides a means of obtaining Lines
of Position (LOPs) from these stars. Crossing LOPs will fix
a position. Celestial Navigation requires a chart, and a planned
course on that chart, with waypoints specified by Latitude
and Longitude, an assumed time of arrival at each waypoint,
and stars (including the Sun, Moon, or planets) in view.
In the 1940s, extensive tables of star positions
were made available to air navigators to be used with sextants
to obtain these LOPs. In the tables, all times involved are
GMT. This data is now available from the Internet in "ready
to use" form. Beaumont & Bitzer's gauge simulates the sextant,
and the process by which one obtains a LOP, or crossing LOPs
to obtain a position, or fix.
"We're very excited to be able to offer this
small but significant freeware gauge to the FS community"
says Mark Beaumont. The beauty of flight simulation today
is that we all have the chance to try out many different types
of aircraft and fly them in the way they should be, or were,
flown. Dave and I are particularly keen on the Douglas DC-3
and aircraft of her generation; this gauge brings a level
of realism to that era of navigation that has not been available
to date. There's a learning curve involved in using this sextant
properly (or at all), without doubt; but we encourage you
to put aside your DME, GPS and FS Navigator software for a
while and to learn how demanding accurate navigation could
be in the formative years of many of the world's airlines".
By Dave Bitzer and Mark Beaumont. File name:
DC3_BBSX.ZIP - get it here
