Navigation Airplanes

Longitude And Our Neurons Of Navigation

Brian Klaas | Garden Of Forking Paths | 21st May 2024

Navigational woes and how they were overcome. Latitude was easy to calculate on land or at sea, using the sun in the day and the North Star at night. Calculating longitude was more complex as it required the precise measurement of time — a difficult prospect at sea. “Many of the best scientific minds — including Isaac Newton — gave up on tackling the longitude problem, considering it unsolvable” (3,300 words)

How To Build 300,000 Airplanes In Five Years

Brian Potter | Construction Physics | 23rd May 2024

During WWII, the US produced more aircraft than Germany, Japan and Italy combined — helping to secure the Allied victory. Before the war, American aircraft were hand-assembled piece by piece. Scaling production was a challenge — “while a car had around 5,000 parts, a B-25 bomber had 165,000, not including the tens of thousands of parts in the engines, instruments, and other equipment” (5,600 words)