New Gadgets

P:Despite all the progress in long-range radio aids to aerial navigation, a good navigator likes best to find where in the world he is by celestial star sights, a process that involves only himself, his sextant and the heavenly bodies. Last week New York's Kollsman Instrument Corp. gave the ancient science of celestial navigation a modern twist, announced a new sextant that, once preset, will seek out the proper star or planet, average a series of sights, and flash its readings by remote control to the navigator. With a three-star fix, he can pinpoint the position of his aircraft within two miles under normal flight conditions. But the big advantage lies in the fact that he can do it without ever budging from his navigation charts. The system would be of invaluable help to fighter-bomber pilots on long-range missions. Also, airmen have long speculated that an automatic celestial navigator will ultimately guide intercontinental guided missiles.

P: Ultrasonic vibrations of a ship's hull will keep the ship free of the mariner's ancient scourge, the barnacle, a British inventor announced last week. Birmingham Biochemist M.H.M. Arnold first rigged up a generator to make a bundle of thin metal plates vibrate at 25 kc., found that the plates were clean after long immersion in barnacle-infested waters. Next he fitted generator and plates to the hull of a barnacle-prone 17,000-ton liner. Union Castle, so the entire hull vibrated silently. After an 18-month voyage. Union Castle returned clean. So did a second test ship after five months in the Far East. The vibrations do not kill either the barnacles or their larvae, says Arnold, but they make the hull an unbearably uncomfortable haven for both.

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