I just happened to see this cool Cessna 185F at a recent AOPA event in Frederick, Maryland (KFDK). This plane N90SN is just beyond cool. Steve McQueen type Cool.

I expected Amelia Earhart or Admiral Byrd to come strolling up. Well, they did not, but an equally cool fine gentleman named Art Morvedt did. What a jolly fellow and we talked for more than a few minutes. I don’t see many planes with working Sextants, but I love them. I have a modest Davis Marine Sextant for my very very very small sailboat which never sails beyond the sight of land, but I muck around with the Davis because Sextants are a lot of fun.

I can just imagine showing up with a Sextant for the IFR check ride. That would be an interesting tale indeed. By the way, if anyone can identify that Sextant in the images below, please post. I have been googling aircraft Sextant images, but have not been able to pin down what model it is.







Ahhhh...mechanical flying at its finest...now just where did I put my good old trusty metal E6B.
Art's website by the way is http://polarflight90.com/ Definitely cool.

Search "WWII Astro Compass"

Looks like the guy has some cool flights. Thanks for sharing. I had never heard of this guy.

Very cool. Unbelievable what they used to do with those things, both in aviation and marine.

Thanks for posting. That is very cool. Awesome you got a chance to meet him, and see his plane in person.

I know zip about sextants, other than that good ones are expensive, and I have a friend who is one of the last C130 navigators who knows how to use one. I have seen an article about the pilot and the "Polar Pumpkin" somewhere, quite some time ago. Quite the adventurer--and his flights have been literally "cool", right?

Cary

Kind of a simple explanation...

bigrenna wrote:

Kind of a simple explanation...

That's a great video, thanks for sharing. When it comes to an Aircraft vs Nautical Sextant, it is sort of like the rudder on my sailboat vs the rudder on my friend's PA28. They are similar of course, but different. I have several telescopes, all with different mounts, yet the all manage to track stellar objects equatorially. I get the impression that aircraft Sextants are similar in that fashion as well.

I know how to work a nautical sextant, but i think I would struggle with that gadget mounted in Cessna 185 N90SN. Incidentally, I have googled, searched, and read about WWII aircraft Sextants, but i still have been unable to identify that particular unit. I am beginning to suspect that the unit mounted in N90SN may have modifications which make it harder for me to ID.

And yeah...he was a really really cool guy to talk to.

As a previous poster mentioned, the unit installed is an Astro Compass, not a sextant. All it will do is provide you with a true heading, not a position.

Chris

Art is truly a class act. I've known him for years. His lodge operation (Peace of Selby Lodge) is a beautiful place and nice folks.

Art set a goal to fly that 185 to both the north and south poles, and he accomplished that after a couple tries.

But, if you see the "Pumkin" at a fly in, stop and visit with Art. He's been at OSH several times.

MTV

There are open source and commercial products that take a picture of the sky, day or night, even through light haze, and determine the location to within a few miles (or better, if you are the right sort of customer).

A buddy is working on a night sky app that allows you to repeatedly align a set of known stars or planets with camera and it will start filling in some others until you get a fix to within several miles with a dozen sightings. All it needs is a good time reference, the installed database, and a phone with a camera you can change the digital f-stop on. It even gives an approximate error radius. It's as easy as finding a few common stars you know how to find and repeatedly taking sightings on them over time. Even holding the phone by hand, it is interesting how close the solution can be.

There are also several decent sextant apps available. Some work fairly well.

If it is ever useful in the future, it probably means there is a lot more serious things to worry about for most of us, and I doubt cell phones will be that popular if that comes to pass.

@ AirChris

the unit installed is an Astro Compass, not a sextant

Ahhh..okay. I gotcha. I thought Astro Compass was a type or brand of Sextant, and not a "compass" compass. I was totally confused about that supposed " Sextant " and now I know better. Thanks... I think I still want one though . They just look wicked.

Now I am kinda of curious what sorts of gadgets Earhart, Byrd, and Lindbergh had in their cockpits.

Ebay is a good place to look. They do look nice sitting on a bookshelf!

Denali wrote:@ AirChris

the unit installed is an Astro Compass, not a sextant

Ahhh..okay. I gotcha. I thought Astro Compass was a type or brand of Sextant, and not a "compass" compass. I was totally confused about that supposed " Sextant " and now I know better. Thanks... I think I still want one though . They just look wicked.

Now I am kinda of curious what sorts of gadgets Earhart, Byrd, and Lindbergh had in their cockpits.

Lindbergh's compass read backwards, and he looked at it through a mirror mounted on the panel. That's assuming that the "facts" in the Jimmy Stewart movie, "The Spirit of St. Louis", were valid.

Cary

Cary wrote:

Denali wrote:@ AirChris

the unit installed is an Astro Compass, not a sextant

Ahhh..okay. I gotcha. I thought Astro Compass was a type or brand of Sextant, and not a "compass" compass. I was totally confused about that supposed " Sextant " and now I know better. Thanks... I think I still want one though . They just look wicked.

Now I am kinda of curious what sorts of gadgets Earhart, Byrd, and Lindbergh had in their cockpits.

Lindbergh's compass read backwards, and he looked at it through a mirror mounted on the panel. That's assuming that the "facts" in the Jimmy Stewart movie, "The Spirit of St. Louis", were valid.

Cary

That's true. And it's not unheard of in a few other, possibly more surprising modern(-ish) airplanes. The next time you're flying on an American Airlines MD-80, or a Delta MD-88, visit the cockpit and have the pilots show you where the magnetic compass is and how they look at it in flight.

God, how I hated the MD-88... LOL