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You're overstating the problem to an extent. Pilots in WWII had things like the predecessor to TACAN to navigate with -- my grandfather was a pilot in the Army
by jki275 3y ago
You're overstating the problem to an extent.
Pilots in WWII had things like the predecessor to TACAN to navigate with -- my grandfather was a pilot in the Army Air Corps and described navigation with radio beacons regularly.
Aircraft Carriers don't move far in the short time CV based aircraft are up -- they just need to navigate back to where they took off from. That's not as hard as it sounds, even with 1940s technology. You just need to navigate to within radio range, which is a couple hundred miles if you're in the air.
At the same time, they did get lost at times.
- rjsw 3y agoRoyal Navy carriers had homing beacons to help their aircraft find the carrier again. The beacon rotated once a minute, the pilots synchronized their watches to the beacon before taking off, when they heard the signal through their headphones the second hand on their watch would indicate the bearing back to the carrier. RN strike aircraft also had their own radar which made it easier to find things.
- jki275 3y agoYep! That would be the predecessor to our modern TACAN systems.