How did Planes Fly Before GPS?

How did Planes Fly Before GPS?:
The Wright Brothers first took to the skies in 1903 but GPS wasn't publicly available until 1983, so how did planes traverse the world in those 80 years? From celestial navigation to dead reckoning, to the firsts forms of radio telemetry (like adock range stations and LORAN) we'll be discussing them all in this vide.

On September 1st, 1983, Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was making a regularly scheduled flight from New York to Seoul, South Korea via Anchorage. Unknown to the pilots, because of an error in setting the autopilot system, the plane began deviating from its intended course, and flew over Russian controlled airspace in Kamchatka.

Today, this deviation would have been easily noticeable on the flight computer’s GPS system. GPS had been invented a decade earlier, but up until this point, it remained a tightly guarded asset of the US military and wasn’t shared with commercial pilots. The autopilot systems of the time followed magnetic courses based on the Earth’s electromagnetic field. So far out into the Pacific, away from the ground-based radar stations in Seoul, these magnetic courses would have been the pilot’s main navigational guide. After the plane was shot down by the Russians, GPS became available to the public for commercial aviation, but before that, there were a handful of ways pilots could tell just where they were in the world.

Pilotage was a system of literally using points of reference on the ground, like mountains or lakes, to determine their position and their desired course. Then came celestial navigation, using the stars to guide pilots at night or in places where there were no visible landmarks. Then pilots used dead reckoning, a fancy system of guestimating your location based on your wind speed and heading. Finally, after that pilots really took thinks up a notch with the adock range station, LORAN, VOR & TACAN, and eventually the Global Positioning System.

Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an upload!

Table of Contents (for the video markers)
0:00-1:28: Before GPS
1:28-1:52: Pilotage
1:52-3:05: Celestial Navigation
3:05-4:37: Dead Recokning
4:37-5:29: Adock Range Staton
5:29-6:44: LORAN
6:44-7:42: VOR & TACAN
7:42-9:00: GPS

All the Links:

(FYI: This specific link will take you to the mic I use to record my videos, but after you click the link you can buy ANYTHING on Amazon and this will help support the channel)

[donjohnson]

I was a military pilot before the days of GPS (which is SATELLITE BASED) and we used a navigation system called LORAN (our nav device was a TRACOR). Why is it that very few people know about or acknowledge the existence of a period where we used LORAN? That was a LAND/SURFACE BASED navigation system that used a kinda slow, complicated, cumbersome kind of charts with LORAN circles on them. In a hyperbolic system such as LORAN, a receiver on an aircraft or ship picks up radio signals broadcast by one or more pairs of radio stations spaced hundreds of miles apart. The system works by measuring the time delays between signals from the two stations. THAT was how airplanes navigated in those days prior to GPS and neither had ANYTHING to do with "How did airplanes fly", which is a whole different subject, generally called aerodynamics.

[MillyBays]

1:00 Looks like an extra R might've slipped into that executive order.

[pdep]

Gee was an early electronic navigation system based on ground stations and pulses. It rose to significance during WW2 and lasted in British military aircraft long after. I was honoured to participate in the final Gee-approach landing as the navigator on the night Gee finally shut down in 1970. We timed our home ETA to the second. As the wheels touched the runway, seconds later, after midnight, the Gee system shut down. Loran succeeded Gee [which I disliked and subsequently Decca navigator, which most all navigators detested. It was a bodged version inherited from the Navy where it was much better suited]. After leaving the RAF, I worked for Decca Navigator at New Malden near London. But that's another story... 😁

[McStebb]

I'm a student pilot earning my PPL, and you might be surprised to know that VOR is still widely used in general aviation. It's a convenient tool for cross country navigation, especially out here in the Midwest where everything is flat; no mountains to cut off LOS

[domwings]

It’s amazing that just an airplane over a country is enough to shoot it down. Absolutely unacceptable

[lamucchinaofficial]

Your Channel Is so underrated, i Hope in future you will have more subscribers

[aeroabs]

6:54 the arrow points to the VOR with a big arrow saying "these things" when all they are pointing to is the engine instrument panel which has nothing to do with navigation

[siddharthapogula]

Nice this video voice over and animation is very good for a small channel like yours. I hope you get more subs soon

[mariasarli]

Fascinating. Glad we don't fly using the earlier methods. They sound terrifyingly prone to error.

[semperfidelis]

definitely subscribing, love the way you present your content.

[BLK_BBIES]

this was very interesting i am liking to learn about planes recently fascinating did no know they used to use the stars sounds so ancient

[pirate]

I started flying in 1974, we used to just "point and go"

[Uploader]

I think your channel is about to get super big, this video was amazing, and I'm sure that if you keep on with the good work, the subscribers will arrive.

My mind was blown with the LORAN receiver, that invention was surely groundbreaking. If you need anything in regards to copywriting, graphic design, video editing or after effects, just let me know. I want to be a part of your growth.

Cheers from Bogotá, Colombia!

[zooker]

An inertial navigation system would've been interesting also

[demonkiller]

amazing video, impressive for a small channel!

[skimaticsnz]

really - a channel focused on science says "how did planes fly before GPS" they flew but how did they navigate!

[SpidaMez]

6:55 That arrow is pointing to engine one RPM. Definitely not a VOR/DME instrument

[oxcart]

Same way they do now-but it was harder to navigate!

[johnmay]

YOU FORGOT THE DECCA NAVIGATOR SYSTEM

[bakoena]

Sounds like it was really hard being a pilot in days before gps😮