User:Msrasnw/Afdthings
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Bigsworth chart board (The Bigsworth Protractor, Parellels and Chart Board) was a device, developed circa 1918, to aid in the use of charts for the onboard navigation of planes. It consisted of a wooden board upon which a chart was placed.[1] Over the chart was a pivoted double parallel linking arm that could be adjusted up and down the side of the board and at the arm's end was a protractor.[2] Its inventor was Arthur Wellesley Bigsworth (whose name inspired Captain W. E. Johns to name his hero "Biggles").[3][4][5] The square board was available in two sizes (14 inches or 17 inches)... which being most suitable depending on the space available. The United States, National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics Report (1922) describes the Bigsworth board as "one of the most convenient avaialble outfits ... for plotting and determining courses, finding position, etc."[6]
Jefford (2014) notes that the board "was produced in substantial quantities and it remained in service well into WWII when it was still providing a portable and self-contained navigation station in aeroplanes (like the remaining open-cockpit biplanes, and even Blenheim Mk Is) in which adequate facilities for the observer were still lacking." (p.373)[7]
Woolrych (1995) when looking at the origins of fighter control in the RN traces its origins to Lieutenant Commander Charles Coke, Air Signals Officer who, during the Norwegian Campaign, on the Ark Royal (a ship not fitted with radar, and relying on reports of Luftwaffe air activity from the accompanying cruisers with their Type 79 air warning radar), without suitable facilities used a corner of the carrier’s Bridge Wireless Office, and with a telegraphist next to him telling him the incoming reports from the cruisers made the plots on a ‘Bigsworth Board’.[8]
Moffat, the pilot of the Swordfish that most likely launched the torpedo that damaged the Bismarck such that it was later sunk notes in his book recounting his time in FAA the importance of the Bigsworth for allowing them to find their way back to their carrier. [9]
Bigsworth is listed in Gunston's (2009) Dictionary as an obsolete integrated chartboard, transparent overlay, parallel rules and Douglas protractor.[10]
The Board gets a mention in the Fleet Air Arm's Song Books parody of Kipling's If:
- If you can keep control of your dividers
- And Bigsworth board and Gosport tube and pad;
- Or listen to the wireless and pilot
- Talking in unison — and not go mad.[11]