Multimedia Gallery
- Topic: Navigating In The Air
The shortest distance between two points on a globe is not always a straight line—it’s an arc called a great circle.
A post-war periscopic sextant often mounted this type of watch.
Developed navigation tools, trained distance fliers in air navigation, and advised the Army Air Corps
Harold Gatty instructs an Air Corps officer in the use of the drift indicator he invented.
Presented by President Herbert Hoover at the White House on August 18, 1932.
Lead navigator of the 100th Bomb Group, Eighth Air Force.
After the harrowing losses of 1943, Crosby and his fellow crew members found less opposition in 1944 and 1945. However, navigational challenges increased as missions moved deeper into central Europe.
In early 1941, the Army Air Corps had only 44 trained navigators, mostly from a civilian contract school. By war’s end, the Army Air Forces had graduated over 50,000 navigators from its own schools.