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Spanning Four Decades: A Few Key Instruments Invented by Weems
Several tools developed by Weems, more than half of a century ago, continue to be in demand from Weems & Plath today. The most widely used is the Mark II Plotter, now identified as the Weems Course Plotter.
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It is a simple tool that allows quick plotting and projection of one's position. This one tool replaced the need for a navigator to carry a separate protractor, straight edged parallel rules with indices at statute and nautical miles, and a set of dividers. The tool is successful due to its simplicity.
Books by Captain Weems
- 1928 Line of Position Book - A short accurate method using Ogura's altitude tables and Rust's modified azimuth diagram.
- 1928 (1938) (1940) (1950) Star Altitude Curves - A method for obtaining a fix, given only the Greenwich sidereal time and the observed altitudes of two stars. The use of the dead reckoning position, declination, right ascension, hour angle and azimuth is eliminated.
- 1931 Air Navigation
- 1940 Instrument Flying (With Charles Zweng)
- 1940 Simplified Celestial Navigation (with Edwin Link)
- 1940 Marine Navigation
- 1943 Learning to Navigate
- 1962 Pilot Class in Space Navigation; final report, 1 July 1961 to 1 July 1962.
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The Weems Rolling Plotter (ca 1930s) was developed by Captain Weems early in his navigation career. The revolutionary rolling mechanism and design allows a navigator to transfer parallel lines, determine headings, and measure distances with great speed and accuracy. This tool remains the single most popular Weems and Plath plotter used by navigators today.
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Proportional Dividers (1953), a highly accurate speed-time-distance computer, long used by chart makers. This tool allows the navigator to quickly solve for either time, speed, or distance when two of the variables are known. This tool remains a popular item for aviation navigation today.
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The Weems Parallel Plotter, the Nautical Slide Rule, and Dividers are the core navigation tools issued to every midshipman at the United States Naval Academy.
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The Nautical Slide Rule quickly solves and speed-time-distance calculation and is a staple item for marine navigators today. By aligning the disks to any two known factors of an equation, the tool displays the unknown factor. Many of Captain Weems inventions were based upon this "computer" concept, such as is seen in this nautical adaptation of a slide rule - a tool common to all engineers prior to modern computers.
Weems collaborated with fellow navigator, friend, and business partner Edwin Link to develop the A-12 Link Bubble Sextant. Link and Weems created this pre-World War II sextant that was used by the military and airlines through the 1940s. This was the last of a line of sextants developed specifically for use in open cockpit planes. Celestial altitudes are measured by reference to an artificial bubble horizon.
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The Weems-Zweng Course Protractor (1957) is used to determine headings and bearings, and their reciprocal. The tool also allows for rapid measurement of distances in several common scales.
The Star-Finder is designed to locate and identify, by altitude and azimuth, the 57 stars listed in the Air and Nautical almanac. The complete unit includes one star base and ten templates set for different latitudes. This item is regularly used today by the US Navy.
Link Star Globe - This portable instrument is a device that teaches the basic principles of celestial navigation and star recognition. Weems and Link collaborated to develop this instrument so that many principles of celestial navigation that are otherwise difficult to conceive are easily grasped.
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Click Here to visit the Annapolis Maritime Museum
Please use the select box below to access additional Contributions of Captain Weems:
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