[ARC5] Video discussing the loss of the Lady Be Good

[Mike Hanz]

On 12/29/2014 11:53 PM, kgordon2006 at frontier.com wrote:
> As I remember it, the Lady Be Good had no ADF, which is Automatic Direction Finder. It
> had a "Football" loop and a receiver (like the BC-453) with a loop connection which
> could be used to easily determine a bearing to a known transmitter, like an NDB.
> None of these systems had a way to resolve the 180 degree ambiguity on a single
> bearing to an unknown station: there had to be at least two bearings to known stations
> in order to triangulate a position.

I'm a little puzzled, Ken.  These were new B-24D aircraft, the year was 
1943, and the standard issue for the aircraft at the time was the 
SCR-269-C automatic direction finder, which definitely has both the 
"football" loop and vertical whip sense antennas that work together to 
eliminate ambiguity.  Of course, the navigator needs to remember to 
place the control box function control in the "compass" position rather 
than the "loop" position in order to obtain the unambiguous result of 
both antennas.  After passing the radio station, the radio compass would 
have automatically swung around and pointed backwards to the station 
again.  The arrow point of an I-82-A compass is *unmistakable* unless 
one is blind.  Perhaps that pointing backwards was what caused the 
"navigator" to report that his ADF was broken?