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Posted by NelsonMinar 10 hours ago

The electromechanical angle computer inside the B-52 bomber's star tracker(www.righto.com)
267 points | 77 commentspage 2
enjeyw 5 hours ago|
The story of the navigator in the photo is also worth a read [1]. Very reminiscent of Joseph Heller’s work.

1. https://www.rbogash.com/B-52/Carls_Letter.html

matheusmoreira 5 hours ago||
The Air Almanac... Reminds me of the celestial navigation military training videos:

https://youtu.be/UV1V9-nnaAs

lb1lf 8 hours ago||
In a very similar vein, Ars Technica did a very interesting story on the electromechanical targeting computers on WW2 battle ships a few years ago; the instructional videos embedded in the story are gold.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/05/gears...

black6 8 hours ago||
> Each knob on the Master Control Panel has a different geometrical shape, allowing the user to distinguish the knobs by feel.

Auto manufacturers should take a clue here.

DavidVoid 7 hours ago|
See also: the distinct shape of the flap and landing gear levers (which are often located next to each other).

https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/22680/why-is-th...

aaronmdjones 6 hours ago||
... and yet on more than one occasion, pilots have taken off and prematurely retracted the flaps when they meant to retract the gear!

Humans fascinate me sometimes.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/578defbae5274...

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/578def27ed915...

(Two separate incidents in the same year, on the same day, even)

EDIT: Updated links to point to incident reports

runjake 6 hours ago||
Before GPS (and after), B-52s navigated using redundant Inertial Navigation Systems (INS).

The angle computers were removed from the H models in the early to mid 1990s and I doubt they added them back.

SecurityPill 5 hours ago||
I wonder if we would ever be able to vibe code the design and 3d print it someday
ForHackernews 7 hours ago||
Similar but arguably even more insane is the Minuteman ICBM's inertial guidance computer https://www.righto.com/2024/08/minuteman-guidance-computer.h...

> The diagram below shows the guidance system of the Minuteman III missile (1970). This guidance system contains over 17,000 electronic and mechanical parts, costing $510,000 (about $4.5 million in current dollars). The heart of the guidance system is the gyro stabilized platform, which uses gyroscopes and accelerometers to measure the missile's orientation and acceleration.

wat10000 1 hour ago|
Even nuttier is the one from the Peacekeeper. Float a perfect beryllium sphere in fluorocarbon. Use thrusters to keep it oriented. No gimbal lock, because no gimbals. Six million dollars per unit, in 1987. So good that a system with literally perfect accuracy wouldn't improve accuracy, because error from the system was already well below other sources of inaccuracy in the missile. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Inertial_Reference_Sp...
brcmthrowaway 5 hours ago||
Could Claude make this?
dnnddidiej 4 hours ago|
Claude Shannon? Probably.
93po 6 hours ago||
Someone recreating this and allowing access to it sort of in the style of an escape room business would be pretty cool - motion flight sim where you can learn to fly the plane or learn to operate the other parts of engineer/bombing/navigation etc. And maybe not simulating the problematic "let's bomb human targets" but rather just bullseyes in fields.
kylehotchkiss 5 hours ago|
in a way we're still trying to build stuff like this (world models??)
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