Engineer Compasses
August 24th, 2010 | 
Author: Engineer Compasses
Before any of the famous feats of daring, the great Firsts in the story of human endeavour can happen, one thing is required of the Hero: To dream the impossible dream. Like The Man of La Macha on his donkey, like Sir Francis Drake in The Golden Hind, so a young aviator, born just six years before the first powered flight at Kitty Hawk, dreamed of being first to fly around the world. His name was Charles Kingsford Smith and for him the world began in 1897, in a suburb of Brisbane, Australia. No markers of the glittering career ahead of him were apparent in the teenaged student of engineering and mechanics who would rather ride jump on his motorbike for a ride than read text books. But this preference for action was a characteristic that led to a record of heroism during his service in World War One, flying primitive aircraft made of wood, wire and canvas.
Invalided out of active duty, Charles was twenty years old and still eager for adventure. He found plenty of that in America, where he did stunt-flying for some years in the budding film industry at Hollywood. Daring as he was, Charles took a reality-check when a fellow flyer was killed during an especially risky stunt. In search of a less dangerous way to earn a living doing what he most loved, Charles returned to the land of vast distances - Australia, where flying was the best travel option for a population settled mainly in coastal cities of a country the size of the continental USA. Flying the mail over the seemingly endless stretches of Western Australia's red sand deserts, the young fellow soon to be known to the nation as 'Smithy' began to dream.
The first step was modest enough by this man's standards. He planned to fly across the biggest of all oceans - the Pacific - making only three stops along the way, the first time the awesome flight would be attempted. Such a trip required some preparation and Smithy had a training run in mind. In 1926, he teamed up with Melbourne pilot Charles Thomas Ulm, who was to set records of his own in the years to come, and the pair did a round-Australia flight in a record-breaking ten days and five hours, half the previous best time. Smithy was only at the start of his cherished ambition.
His goal was to achieve what no airman before him had ever done: to fly around the world. Two years later, Smithy and Ulm had the aircraft to do the job. Their top notch crew included a navigator and radio operator - both Americans - equipped with four compasses, three radio transmitter sets and two separate receivers. Emergency plans were in place should the aircraft crash into the ocean and a week's worth of food and water was taken aboard. Still, none of the team contemplated defeat as they readied for takeoff at Oakland, California. © Dorothy Gauvin
Dorothy Gauvin is the author of Conlan's Luck, An Epic Story of the Shearers' War. This little-known uprising of the 1890s has been called a 'Secret Civil War.' Scholarly texts have been published about this seminal and colourful period of Australian history, but Conlan's Luck seems to be the only novel yet published on the subject. See more about the novel at http://www.bestbooksfor.com/
what are the parts of engineers directional compass?
Just like degrees.
A disc(compass card)marked out in degrees as well as conventional compass graduations such as N,,S,E ,W circle which is divided into the 64 equal parts.the card has a central hub bearing containing a very hard stone arbour which sits on a hard metal point so that the the card can easily revolve to indicate directions.At the heart of this is a small strong permanent magnetic bar fixed out of sight under the card.Engineers compasses may have a means to view the scale with a fixed magnifying lens.The container for the moving parts can be opened/closed like a pocket watch and the card assembly will be under a transparent 'watch glass' which will have indicator lines on it's surface to allow easy alignment.I wish I hadn't started this :would have been easier to send you mine.
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