Mark 3A Aircraft Navigational Plotting Board (1933), Part 1: One-handed wind triangles!

Philip Dalton filed a patent in 1933 for an "Aircraft Navigational Plotting Board" that allowed pilots to fly with one hand while solving navigation problems with the other. Combined with the attached Mark VIII flight computer on the lower right hand side, Dalton's plotting board was a complete navigation solution for single-seat aircraft and eliminated the need to carry parallel rulers and dividers. One thing is unmistakable thought...the Mark 3A plotting board was huge! For pilots who merely needed to draw a few wind triangles, the majority of space on the board would be unused. For pilots who used the board for position plotting, the extra space was likely appreciated. In this video, we look at the former use case. Specifically, we compare paper chart methods of drawing the wind triangle to the same task on the plotting board, both of which provide similar answers, but one of which lends itself nicely to in-flight navigation. 00:00 – 1. Introduction and history 00:47 – 2. What good is a plotting board? 01:34 – 3. A wind triangle on paper (find groundspeed and true heading) 05:05 – 4. The same wind triangle on the plotting board (with one hand!) 07:17 – 5. Comparison: paper, plotting board, and an E-6B style computer 09:03 – 6. Conclusion Notes: Probably the best tongue slip in this video is my reference to "parallel dividers." Can you imagine that? Second best would be an "indefinite line!" Check out Part 2 here:    • Mark 3A Aircraft Navigational Plotting Boa...   Appearances: Aircraft Navigational Plotting Board Mark 3a plotting board (c. 1944); Bu. Aero. U.S. Navy Aircraft Navigational Computer Mark 8 (c. 1933); Computer, Air Navigation, Dead Reckoning Type MB-4 (Felsenthal, 1958) #e6b #aviation #flightcomputer #deadreckoning #navigation #math #history #pilottraining #mark8 #mark3 #philipdalton #plottingboard #airnavigation #dividers #parallelrulers