[DUMBGRUNT]

—” their drift-prone gyro INS systems.”

And all this time I always thought it was the Air Force guys giving the Grunts in the back a ‘thrill ride’.

On one ancient beast, we were rocking about 45 degrees each way!
It had an observation port in the roof(?) for a sextant and the monsoon was POURING in! The crew was taking turns attempting to seal the hatch.

I don’t know if taking on enough water would sink us, but didn’t want to find out.

Finally, they were able to slow the leak, and they were totally wet.

[Yo-Yo]

Going all the way back to pre-WWII aircraft, both civilian airliners and military transports, they almost always had an astronavigation dome so that the Navigator could shoot the stars using a sextant. Some C-130s from the 60s-80s also had astrodomes.