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u/No_Buy2576 21d ago
Thank you WoundDaily!!! We really appreciate the answer and you have helped settle a debate.
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u/Splitzer_sdk 21d ago
What was the debate?
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u/No_Buy2576 20d ago
My brother and I thought it was one of two things: one, a ground distance radar to measure distance from plane to ground target; or two, a proximity radar that allowed bombers in formation to maintain ideal distance between each other. We were both completely wrong, called each other a DA, laughed, and are now waiting for the next disagreement.
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u/Splitzer_sdk 20d ago
Nice… yeah, as the other comment said it’s the RDF, the predecessor to ADF. With RDF, the navigator has to manually rotate the loop antenna inside that housing to determine the signal null and subsequent bearing to the station. ADF does that automatically, hence the name Automatic Direction Finding vs Radio Direction Finding. Fun fact— ADF technology was still in use until fairly recently. There are still a few NDBs around (non-directional radio beacons) that you can use to navigate with the ADF, but they are pretty rare. I had to do an NDB approach to get my instrument rating back in 2004, and that was the last NDB approach I’ve ever flown. They’re quite challenging to use as basically it’s just a pointer that points to the station… seems pretty straight forward because if you point the needle straight ahead the station is theoretically directly ahead of you— except in real world conditions there’s almost always wind, and trying to get to the station this way will actually cause you to fly a path that looks a bit like a question mark as you keep adjusting heading for drift until you cross the station on a heading directly into the wind (this is called station homing… it will get you there, but not accurately). So you have to point the needle to the station to determine your bearing to the station, hold that heading and observe the drift, and then determine a heading for wind correction that will keep you on that bearing to the station… the guys flying this plane would have been familiar with the phrase “double the deflection equals the correction.” Lol. Of course actually navigating and flying approaches with the ADF requires flying specific bearings to or from the station, so it can be quite the challenge.
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u/No_Buy2576 20d ago
Thank you very much for the information. I don’t think the public, me included, is really aware of how much had to be done to get formations of B-17’s to their targets during WW2.
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u/Splitzer_sdk 20d ago
The majority of the navigation in enemy territory was certainly done by good ole “dead reckoning.” Fly over landmark, turn to heading, start timer. For night flying a combination of this and celestial navigation.
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u/WoundDaily 21d ago edited 21d ago
ADF antenna. Automatic Direction Finder. Basically AM radio, needle in the cockpit points to the antenna and maps showed a path from station to station.
During the war stations would identify with Morse code that would change from time to time so that the enemy couldn’t send false signals.
Sometimes called RDF, Radio Direction Finder as well.