Word: gyrocompasses
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...Like the gyrocompass, the gyroscopic ship stabilizer and the Mark 14 antiaircraft gun sight (developed by Dr. Draper and his associates at M.I.T. in 1941), Inertial Guidance is based on the familiar principle that keeps a child's gyroscopic top from falling: a rapidly spinning wheel will resist forces working to twist it from the plane in which it is revolving. A gyroscope sufficiently free of outside disturbances-e.g., friction-will maintain an unvarying spin axis in relation to the "fixed" stars-or any other points of reference-no matter on what path it is carried...
Each student navigator sits in a booth below the starry sphere. Above his desk are instruments that tell the air speed, altitude, gyrocompass reading and other flight data about the airplane he is supposed to be navigating...
...student knows his take-off point. He knows where his ship is supposed to go, and roughly how fast and in what direction it is flying. His job is to find out, by observation, where it really is. Such factors as wind and misbehavior of the gyrocompass can make the ship wander far off its course...
...equator are carried daily around the earth's whole circumference, moving at over 1,000 m.p.h. Objects near the poles are carried around more slowly in smaller, tighter circles. The direction and variation of this circling can be felt by various man-made instruments, such as the gyrocompass. Why shouldn't pigeons feel it, too? If they could, they would have, along with their "magnetic compass," a satisfactory navigating instrument...
...chief of staff now is Sock McMorris, most noteworthy of the officers salvaged from Pearl Harbor. In charge of war plans is Fuzz Sherman, advocate of the fast task force after Pearl Harbor. But the boss of his staff is, as always, Nimitz, the fleet's human gyrocompass, always on the true plane, always on course for Tokyo...