Byrd's dead reckoning on his 1926 North Pole flight

• Published in: Polar Record
• Main Author: Newsom, G. H.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 2015
• Subjects: General Earth and Planetary Sciences; Ecology; Geography, Planning and Development; Byrd; North Pole; Polar Record
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0032247415000169; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0032247415000169

ABSTRACT 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.