Originally Posted by
ERJF15
KC-135's had windows in the rear of the flight deck for star navigation.
No, the KC-135 windows are just like the B-707 windows which are just like the B-727 windows which are just like the B-737 windows. No windows in the back.
What some of them have -- KC-135s, EC-135s, RC-135s, some other -135s -- or had -- B-727s, B747s -- is/was a hole in the top of the fuselage near the back of the cockpit, and a mount beneath that hole that accepts a persicopic sextant. The mount seals the hole when the sextant is not in use, and it holds the sextant in place when mounted. It holds it both in the retracted position (nothing sticking out of the airplane), and in the extended position -- to "shoot" celestial bodies. THe hole is 1.375" in diameter -- slightly smaller than the diameter of a large chicken egg. That doesn't mean a large chicken egg wouldn't fit through it, though.
Vacuuming with the sextant port was frowned on after debris kept getting lodged in the Q inlet, which affected rudder feel. My favorite party trick involved a roll of toilet paper. Insert wooden pencil through cardboard tube, and hang on to both ends of the pencil. Open sextant port and put end of roll up to the hole. As long as nothing gets caught and it's allowed to unroll freely, it takes about 3 seconds for a full roll to unwind and exit the airplane.
Originally Posted by
Captain Bligh
The airplanes originally dispatched with navigators all had sextant ports like a blow-hole in the roof of the cockpit. Sometimes there was a tripod to mount the sextant on to steady it under the hole.
A tripod would have rendered a sextant useless. The person using the sextant has to move the sextant as the airplane moves -- even when it seems straight-and-level, unaccelerated, the view through the sextant window says otherwise. The only tripod normally associated with celestial navigation might be found on the stool to stand on so one could reach the sextant hanging from the ceiling. (Another "fun" thing to do was to feed in a good portion of rudder before a cel shot began, and then during the shot, slowly let the rudder out and feed in the opposite rudder. Of course, it's only advisable to play that game when other means of navigation are in use, because the results of that cel shot won't be pretty.
)
Eyebrow windows are handy for receiver air refueling.
.