Kelly, thanks for the post. Very interesting. This may be far out from astronomy, but celestial navigation is used, so here goes. An Englishman, Sir Francis Chichester, flew a Gypsy Moth aeroplane from England to Australia solo, becoming the second person to do so. Bert Hinkler was the first. Wiki has interesting info on both. These flights were, I believe, in the 1920s. Chichester took 41 days to accomplish his trip, Then, after several successful sailing ventures, in yachts named the Gyply Moth (I,II,lll) at the age of 66, he decided to sail around the world single handed in GM IV (as I recall, a 60 ft plus ferro-cement yacht). The story of this trip is recorded in a fascinating book, "Gypsy Moth Around the World". The fact that is really interesting about this trip, other than being the fastest one-man circumnavigation of the globe, is that he sailed mostly south of the "roaring 20s." For those of you who might be interested, I am sure your local library can get you a copy. 73 On 12/14/2012 10:39 AM, Kelly Ricks wrote:
Etienne Leopold Trouvelot is best known as the man who mistakenly introduced the gypsy moth to North America.