Astral sighting simulator for aerial navigation training - determines true heading and position of simulated aircraft

摘要

An astral sighting simulator for pilot and navigator training in aerial navigation has a real sextant and an electro-optical system which represents a heavenly body (moon, sun or star) and mechanisms which simulate its movement in sight and azimuth in the heavens. To represent the apparent diameter, colour and brilliance of the body, the electro-optical means has a luminous source and an optical device giving a beam representative of the body to a prism of the real sextant. The movements in sight and azimuth of the body are simulated by a mechanism which moves the luminous source around a hemisphere which represents the heavens and whose centre is identical with the intersection swinging axis of the sextant prism and the optical axis of an optical device.