Before WWII there were few navigators, used primarily to guide airplanes flying over water beyond the limited range of meager radio aids. Charts were poor, equipment was simply adaptations of what sea-going mariners used. Celestial observations aiding basic dead reckoning was about it.

During WWII great strides were made in aerial navigation technology. Aids to navigation improved markedly. Radio systems like LORAN, CONSOLE, DECCA and ship-borne beacons helped on those long oceanic crossings. The importance of air transport, bombardment and reconnaissance missions spawned a variety of additional improvement. Finding the way to targets deep in enemy territory placed great demands upon navigators.

Airborne radar systems became practical and usable in late WWII. All-weather capabilities for finding targets begot the sub-specialties of radar navigator and radar bombardier. Primitive radar interceptor capabilities came along to add a measure of air defense. Electronic warfare began as radar countermeasures techniques and equipment led to yet another navigational specialty.

Despite these advances, the slowest thing to change for the navigators was his work station or airborne office. Many performed their duties in dimly lit, cramped and highly restrictive spaces. Some used just a clipboard while sitting upon a small stool. Others had flimsy little tables for spreading their charts and computational work forms. Briefcases were crammed with books, including aircraft flight handbooks, celestial computational tables, dozens of flight charts and a variety of plotters, calculators and drawing instruments.

The advent of the jet age in the 1950's did little to improve working conditions. Navigators in B-45's, B-47's, B-57's and B-52's still worked in crowded spaces. Each new electronic device seemed to take up more and more of what little room there was.

It's probably a good thing that navigators were accustomed to working in tight spaces, with little room to spread out their charts and star tables. For in the 60's navigators found themselves flying in a variety of fighters and fighter bombers. They flew as electronic warfare and reconnaissance specialists, in addition to doing navigation work. It was back to the clipboard or knee-board for an office desk.

One of the first airplanes with a really decent navigator's work station was the B-58. Though it was still a bit cramped and without provision for standing up and moving about, the cockpit was laid out with considerable forethought. Indirect lighting replaced little spotlights to make chart reading easier. They even built in an overhead water container, except that the darned things often leaked.

The fellows who flew in the big airplanes, huge transports like the C-141 and C-5 not only found they were at last given an ample working station, they also had some of the best navigational equipment available. Inertial systems, doppler radars, better mapping radars and computers helped greatly. Even the KC-135 aerial tanker and C-130 cargo planes were becoming high tech airplanes with decent navigator work stations.

One area where consideration for navigators still lagged was in bailout and escape from battle damaged or crippled planes. Those who flew in transports had no ejection seats, so getting out in a hurry remained problematical. Navigators in B-47's and 52's did have seats, but those were downward ejection systems really of help only at medium or high altitudes. Those in fighters fared a bit better because they had upward ejecting seats like their pilots.

All of this may be a bit academic as we move into the last years of the 20th century and look forward to the next. Much of what navigators traditionally did has been automated. Little black boxes and satellites have made world wide navigation simpler, more reliable and far less expensive than keeping navigators on the payroll. And black boxes don't earn costly pensions.

Some specialty navigator functions have not yet been automated, but the trend is obvious. Soon there will be little need for a navigator aboard airplanes, or providing space for them to work. The navigator's office is fast becoming superfluous.