photo #2214641

My tour of duty, as a Global Qualified Aircraft Commander on the first USAF wide bodied jet, ended June 1970.The C-141 Starlifter was far more advanced than any civilian airliner of that time and had inertial navigation systems and an automatic hands off landing system.There were several stationary Coast Guard Weather ships in oceans to monitor the weather and aid aircraft and ships in navigation.The ship between San Francisco and Honolulu in the North Pacific was Ocean Station November. The USCGC Pontchartrain was one of the ships, a 255-foot Lake-class patrol gunboat built by the U.S. Coast Guard ship yard at Curtiss Bay, Maryland, and commissioned 28 July 1945. The ship was redesignated as a high endurance cutter in 1948.Every aircraft would contact the ship as they traveled to or from Honolulu. It was important to be on course when penetrating the Hawaiian Air Defense Identification Zone.The ship depended on celestial navigation and would need help during long periods of overcast skies. That's why they loved Starlifters. We could give them their exact location.Crews also loved airliners because stewardess would talk to them.With GPS and volunteer weather reporting from commercial ships, those lonely weather ships became mostly obsolete.