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Santa Installs a GPS System



Here comes Santa Claus. There goes Santa Claus.

Price: $3.55

FooDaddy GPS...Twice the Travel Time



*Persons equipped with a FooDaddy® GPS system are guaranteed a 100% increase in the time it takes them to locate any destination!

Price: $22.45

Blackbird SR-71 specs on back of shirt



Astro-Inertial Navigation System (ANS) Blackbird precision navigation requirements for route accuracy, sensor pointing and target tracking preceded the development and fielding of the Global Positioning System (GPS) and its family of position-determining satellites. U-2 and A-12 Inertial Navigation Systems existed, but US Air Force planners wanted a system that would bound inertial position growth for longer missions envisioned for the R-12 / SR-71. Nortronics, the electronics development organization of Northrop, had extensive astro-inertial experience, having provided an earlier generation system for the USAF Snark missile. With this background, Nortronics developed the Astro-Inertial Navigation System for the AGM-87 Skybolt missile, which was to be carried and launched from B-52H bombers. When the Skybolt Program was cancelled in December 1962, the assets Nortronics developed for the Skybolt Program were ordered to be adapted for the Blackbird program. A Nortronics "Skunkworks" type organization in Hawthorne, California completed the development and fielding of this system, sometimes referred to as the NAS-14 and/or the NAS-21. The ANS primary alignment was done on the ground and was time consuming, but brought the inertial components to a high degree of level and accuracy for the start of a mission. A "blue light" source star tracker, which could detect and find stars during day or night, would then continuously track stars selected from the system's digital computer ephemeris as the changing aircraft position would bring them into view. Originally equipped with data on 56 selected stars, the system would correct inertial orientation errors with celestial observations. The resulting leveling accuracies obtained limited accelerometer errors and/or position growth. Rapid ground alignments and air-start abilities were later developed and added to the ANS. Attitude and position inputs to on-board systems and flight controls included the Mission Data Recorder, Auto-Nav steering between loaded destination points, automatic pointing and/or control of cameras at control points and optical or SLR sighting of fix points (this mission data being tape loaded into the ANS prior to takeoff). The ANS was located behind the RSO station and tracked stars through a round, quartz window seen in photos of the upper fuselage. Cooling in the Blackbird Mach 3.2+ cruising environment was a serious development challenge, resolved by Lockheed and Nortronics engineers during the early test phases. The ANS became a highly reliable and accurate self-contained navigation system. Note: The original B-1A Offensive Avionics Request For Proposal (RFP) required the installation and integration of an NAS-14 system, but cost- cutting changes later deleted it from the B-1. Some U2-Rs did receive the NAS-21 system, but newer Inertial and GPS systems replaced them. [edit]

Price: $22.75