![]() The cramped confines of aircraft, high speeds, variable weather, and turbulence greatly complicated the process of fixing position. Though these techniques were tried and true in maritime navigation, adapting them to the aerial environment was a new challenge. While Europe and the United States were developing networks of radio beacons and direction finding stations over their own territory, transoceanic navigation was only reliable with proficiency in celestial and dead reckoning navigation. ![]() Understanding how Earhart fits into the story of this profession provides some useful insights into the evolution of long range flight on the eve of World War II. Today, the navigator as a crew member has largely disappeared from most commercial and military long-distance operations, replaced by microprocessors in the form of GPS and inertial navigation systems, but from the 1930s to the 1980s, the navigator was an essential crewmember on many long-distance commercial and military flights. How did Earhart’s planning fit with other flights over the South Pacific? How did their navigational training compare with that of other aviators? And, what was the professional standard of air navigation at the time? In less than two months, the National Air and Space Museum will unveil a new permanent gallery – Time and Navigation: The Untold Story of Getting From Here to There – that will in part chronicle the development of air navigation as a profession. This musing is not meant to provide definitive clues to the disappearance, but rather to provide some further topics of discussion that might be useful for future scholarship. One way to come to terms with the moment is to look at the larger historical context of air navigation at that time. ![]() ![]() Did she have the right training and equipment? If Fred Noonan was one of the greatest aerial navigators of the time, how did they get lost? The evidence for these questions is often vague and contradictory. Viewed as a stand-alone episode, the tale of Earhart’s last flight is confusing. ![]()
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