[ARC5] Fighter Navigation in WWII

[Robert Eleazer]

According to the Book "An Ace of the 8th" WWII fighters in England often used the Non Directional Beacons to find their fields in bad weather.  I guess they would fly to the beacon, picked up on their Detrolas, wait until it started to fade and then start a standard rate turn and letdown.  Sounds scary to me but I guess if you practiced it enough it was not too hard.

Interestingly enough, the Vought P-66's sold to China came equipped with D/F loops and receivers. A friend of mine was assembling a bunch of recon P-38E's (F-4's) for the 10th Photo Recon in India where the P-66's were being assembled.  The Chinese pilots promptly wrecked almost all of them and they salvaged a few of the D/F systems for installation in their recon Lightnings.

And that A6M2 Zero we recovered in the Aleutian Islands in June 1942 had a radio compass installed.  It was made by Fairchild Aero Camera Company of New York City.  So some people liked having radio compasses in single seat fighter aircraft!   The Zero also had a crystal controlled voice or CW comm radio made by the Toyo Electric Corportaion, set for 4145 KHZ.

I wonder how many Zeros had Fairchild radio compasses?

Wayne
WB5WSV