Paper-less and "star-less" navigation, using a bubble sextant in Flight Simulator.
(A modified version that works with FSX can be downloaded from here.).

A big part of the workload, when using a sextant, is looking up star positions for the current location and time. With the sextant available in Flight Simulator it is possible though, to skip this step, and to just "pretend" there is a star at the desired location, and the returned values will be just as accurate.
The basic concept of operating the sextant, and navigating with the found data, is the same as when using real star positions; it just saves a bit of the grunt work.

For the purpose of this tutorial we will place the aircraft stationary at an airport (so we don't have to worry about moving around while following the steps), and use as our assumed position a location about 90nm NE of the actual position.
This tutorial assumes that you know how to do the basic operations of this sextant (e.g. entering coordinates, and adjusting the elevation). For details on those operations, please refer to the original manual.

1.Place aircraft at NWWW airport.
2.Open sextant gauge, and enter -20 -41, 166 51 as the "Assumed Position".
(Or the nearest possible value, with the standard sextant gauge.)
3.Take a reading at 180� (should return 80nm)
(The elevation on the form is not interpreted by the sextant, and can stay at 0.)
4.Take another reading at 270� (should return 35nm)



Method using Google Earth
5. Open Google Earth, and put a placemark at the assumed position.

6. Activate rulers (Tools | Ruler), select the Line tab,
and set units to nautical miles.
Make sure that that north is straight up (press "G" to align, if it isn't.).

7. Click on the assumed position, and drag a vertical line down,
at the length of the 180� distance (if negative, draw the line up).

8. Select the handle at start of the line (at the assumed position),
and drag it to left of the end marker (to indicate the 270� distance).
(The Ruler window will show the heading as 90�, but that's ok,
as it's considering the moved point to be the origin.
)
If the distance was negative, drag it to the right instead.
The final point is your actual position.

9. You could now drag the intermediate point (on the right) back
onto the assumed position, and the ruler window will give the
distance and (true) heading between these two.




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