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They used astro-navigation as far back as the SR71, the "guidance group" system nicknamed R2D2. Cool video of a pilot talking about it here: https://youtu.be/Ce

• wiml 6y ago
  Not just exotic aircraft! Celestial navigation was used by all kinds of long range aircraft, military and civilian, until the 1960s or so. Early jetliners (including the first models of the 747, for example) had sextant ports in the top of the fuselage; older aircraft might have "astrodomes". There's a continuous line of use from age-of-sail seafarers to jet-age aircraft. I think the military trained with sextants for air navigation until the 1990s, as a backup method for inertial and satellite. The main difference being that star sights were taken manually, with an instrument and an eyeball, instead of automatically like the SR71. Of course satellites did and still do use star trackers. The Apollo astronauts took star sights too, presumably for orientation rather than position.