Byrd's dead reckoning on his 1926 North Pole flight

Richard Byrd claimed to have reached the North Pole in his 1926 flight, based mostly on his dead reckoning navigation. His technique of finding distance traveled from observations with a drift indicator can ideally be quite accurate, as shown by simulations of his dead reckoning with a navigation log. But under real-world conditions, especially those of Byrd's flight, significant errors can easily occur. Since we do not have a copy of Byrd's navigation log from the flight, we cannot assess such errors, and there is some evidence that Byrd did not keep a navigation log. However, that would not necessarily lead to less accurate dead reckoning

Air navigation · Cartography · Celestial navigation · Dead end · Dead reckoning · Geography · Global Positioning System · Physics · Telecommunications · Computer Science · Space Exploration and Technology

• Byrd's Arctic flight in the context of model atmospheres

  Open Access•G H Newsom•Polar Record•2013

  Add to list

• Most Probable Position

  Robert Perry, Robert M Perry et al.•Technology and Culture•1974

  Add to list