When did navigators on airliners go the way of the dodo? What technology replaced navigators?

Sixto
87 300D

I think the IL-62 and TU-134 have one -- not built any longer, but a few are still in use.

I took a celestial navigation course for sailing about 16 years ago at the Denver Museum of Natural History. Interesting class. 42 people started the class. There were only 3 of us at the final exam. But that's an aside. In the class I met a person who claimed to be the last person ever certified to navigate an airplane celestially with a sextant. He said that when he decided to do it, he had a hell of a time finding someone who was certified to teach airplane celestial navigation. But he did find one old guy still certified to do it and he studied the materials and passed the test. I believe he said at the time that there was no one left alive qualified to administer the exam anymore.

Didn't LORAN replace sextants?

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

I'd be surprised if the Air Force didn't still have some people experienced in celestial navigation. A dozen or so nukes optimized for EMP in the right (wrong) places, and there wouldn't be functional GPS, VOR or TACAN systems.

The Boeing 727 still used a flight engineer (three-man crew); it was one of the last commercial airframes to do so. (I'm assuming that's what you mean by "navigator".)

727s are still in use, mostly by foreign and cargo carriers.

Flight engineer -- runs the engines and avionics.

Navigator does exactly that. At least in Soviet aircraft, it was a separate job from the flight engineer. You could have a front-end crew of up to five:
(1) Navigator
(2) Radio operator
(3) Flt engineer
(4 & 5) Pilots

Looks like the Air Force gave it up some time ago. If you look at the numbers I posted about students in the class and students at the final exam you can understand why a bureaucratic institution might not want to dedicate a lot of resources to such endeavors. But you are right. Bombs aren't much good if you can't navigate to the target.

"The U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy continued instructing military aviators on its use until 1997, because:

it can be used independently of ground aids
has global coverage
cannot be jammed (although it can be obscured by clouds)
does not give off any signals that could be detected by an enemy [2]

The US Naval Academy announced that it was discontinuing its course on celestial navigation, considered to be one of its most demanding course, from the formal curriculum in the spring of 1998 stating that a sextant is accurate to a three-mile (5 km) radius, while a satellite-linked computer can pinpoint a ship within 60 feet (18 m). Presently, midshipmen continue to learn to use the sextant, but instead of performing a tedious 22-step mathematical calculation to plot a ship's course, midshipmen feed the raw data into a computer.[3] Contrary to media reports, the US Naval Academy continues to practice celestial navigation as members of the USNA Varsity Offshore Sailing Team (VOST) and competes in the celestial spinnaker division in the bi-annual Marion-Bermuda Race racing aboard the venerable Navy 44 sail training craft. The Naval Academy Sailing Squadron (NASS) that consists of both the Offshore Sail Training Squadron (OSTS) and VOST crews use both long forms with paper plotting sheets and electronic celestial applications. Celestial navigation certification[4] is required to achieve the highest "E" qualification at NASS. At another federal service academy, the US Merchant Marine Academy, students are still taught courses in celestial navigation, as it is required to pass the US Coast Guard License Exam.

Likewise, celestial navigation was used in commercial aviation up until the early part of the jet age; it was only phased out in the 1960s with the advent of inertial navigation and doppler navigation systems, and today's satellite based systems which can locate the aircraft's position accurate to a 3-meter sphere with several updates per second.

Celestial navigation continues to be taught to cadets during their training in the Merchant Navy and remains as a requirement for their certificate of competency."

From Wikipedia

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

The math involved is not very complex but quite tedious and easy to make mistakes in calculations. I took the class with a math professor friend of mine. Not sure who the third person was at the exam or whether he passed. The tedious math took most students out long before the final exam. We took noon sights at a local reservoir using mirrors floating in bowls of water. It was great fun and provided a sense of accomplishment. Shortly after completing the class we traveled to the Natural History Museum in NYC to see the James Caird, Shackleton's lifeboat which he sailed from Elephant Island to South Georgia Island. There were screens around the room with video of the Southern ocean. The screeens were connected to sextants which in turn were connected to computers. You could attempt noon sights using the sextant and the screens. The computer would tell you how accurate you were. I was very proud of myself. My sights were dead on.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

How would an ICBM use celestial navigation?

"Intercontinental ballistic missiles use celestial navigation to check and correct their course (initially set using internal gyroscopes) while outside the Earth's atmosphere. The immunity to jamming signals is the main driver behind this apparently archaic technique."

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

All this reminds me of humorous event. While taking the celestial navigation class I got interested in buying a good sextant so I was calling all the local pawn shops to see if any were available. I called one: "Do you have a sextant?" Reply: "Sorry, sir we don't have any tents at all."

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Camera linked to a computer, I'm guessing.

Here's a nice web site I found that explains they why and when but not quite what aircraft. In 1964, the Super Constellation was still in use which certainly had a navigator station. The 707's of the time may have also had space for a navigator for trans atlantic flights.

Props, Pistons, Old Jets And the Good Ole Days of Flying: REMEMBER THE AIRLINE NAVIGATOR

__________________
-Evan


Benz Fleet:
1968 UNIMOG 404.114
1998 E300
2008 E63


Non-Benz Fleet:
1992 Aerostar
1993 MR2
2000 F250

If you look closely at the Constellation photo in the article, I think you can see the plexiglass dome on the top of the plane thru which the navigator could take his star shots.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

That's a nice way to become obsolete.

Sixto
87 300D

Seriously. That's enough of a severance package to put me through law school if I was so inclined.

__________________
Whoever said there's nothing more expensive than a cheap Mercedes never had a cheap Jaguar.

83 300D Turbo with manual conversion, early W126 vented front rotors and H4 headlights 400,xxx miles
08 Suzuki GSX-R600 M4 Slip-on 22,xxx miles
88 Jaguar XJS V12 94,xxx miles. Work in progress.