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Gago Coutinho and the Aircraft Navigation

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48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting & Exhibit
Orlando, FL
January 4-7, 2010

Gago Coutinho and the Aircraft Navigation

F. M. S. P. Neves, J. M. M. Barata & A. R. R. Silva

Aerospace Sciences Department

Universidade da Beira Interior
Covilhã, Portugal

http://aeronautics.ubi.pt

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Introduction
 Generically, navigation is the art and science of maneuvering a ship efficiently and safely.
The ancient navigators often found their way through the observation of physical
landmarks along rivers and coastlines.

 When out of sight of land, they derived clues about their location by measuring water
depth, monitoring wind pattern and wave shape, and observing the position of the Sun as
it moved across the sky. At night they steered by the stars.

 Later navigators developed tools to measure the ships position and progress more
precisely. They used a magnetic compass to determine direction and measured the height
of the Sun or stars on the horizon to fix their position. Their progress and routes were
recorded on nautical maps called charts.

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48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting & Exhibit Orlando, FL, January 4-7, 2010
Introduction
 During the fifteen’s century, Portuguese explorers were
traveling south along the coast of Africa searching for the
route to the orient. As a seafarer nears the equator
heading south, Polaris disappears below the horizon. So,
in southern seas, mariners had to have a different way of
finding their latitude.

 Under orders from the Portuguese Prince Henry by 1480,

Portuguese astronomers had figured out how to
determine latitude using the position of the Sun as it
moved north and south of the equator with the seasons,
what we now call its “declination”.

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48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting & Exhibit Orlando, FL, January 4-7, 2009
Introduction
 Such as ship navigation, human beings have been obsessed
by the idea of flight since the dawn of recorded history.
Men have always imagined themselves cavorting among the
clouds, wheeling and soaring like birds.

• Dec17th 1903 – First controlled flight - Wright Brothers

• Oct 23rd 1906 – Public flight in Paris – Santos Dumont

• Nov 7th 1910 – First freight-carrying flight – Philip Palmalee

• Jul 7th 1909 – First flight over a maritime extension – Louis Blériot Calais (France)/
Dover (England) ~ 27 miles.

• Sep 23rd 1913 – France/Algeria – Mediterranean Sea Across – Roland Garros ~ 475
miles

• May 8th/27th 1919 – First Flight Across the Atlantic – NC-4 flying boat – U. S. A.
/Portugal - LtCdr Albert C Read as Commander/Navigator
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48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting & Exhibit Orlando, FL, January 4-7, 2010
Introduction
 Gago Coutinho developed a new model of sextant that could be
used to measure the altitude of a star without the need of the
sea horizon. An advanced version was manufactured in
Germany by C. Plath under the name of “System Admiral Gago
Coutinho”.

 “Path corrector” was also developed by Coutinho to calculate

graphically the angle between the longitudinal axis of an
airplane and the direction of flight, taking into account the
intensity and the direction of the winds.

 The navigation methods and instruments were tested during short flights, and then applied
with quite success to the flight between Lisbon and Recife in 1922. For the first time in the
history of the aviation the Crossing of the South Atlantic had been achieved and using an
instrument that enabled an airplane’s position to be determined by astronomic navigation
when flying out of sight of land.

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48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting & Exhibit Orlando, FL, January 4-7, 2010
Gago Coutinho and the Aircraft Navigation
 Record of promotions at the Marinha
de Guerra Portuguêsa

• October 30th 1886

Aspiring 1st class;
• January 21th 1890
Midshipman;
• March 07th 1891
Second Lieutenant;
• October 26th 1895
First Lieutenant;
 Gago Coutinho was born in Belém, Lisbon, on
February 17th 1869. His work can be divided • February 07th 1907
Lieutenant Commander;
in four areas, which follow chronologically as
areas for priority action: • December 09th 1918
Sea and War Captain;

• Navy, especially (1893-1898); • March 30th 1922

Rear Admiral (with distinction);
• Geographical Works, (1898-1920);
• Air Navigation, (1919-1927); • August 17th 1932
Vice Admiral;
• History of Navigation and Discovery,
(1925-1958). • April 22nd 1958
Admiral (by resolution of the
National Assembly) 6
48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting & Exhibit Orlando, FL, January 4-7, 2010
Gago Coutinho and the Aircraft Navigation
 Navy ships which  From his many travels two
Coutinho navigated: were famous:

• Corvettes • In the corvette “Mindelo”, under the command

• Afonso de Albuquerque; of Admiral Augusto de Castilho, made its first
• Mindelo; Luanda/Rio de Janeiro cross Atlantic voyage,
• Duque da Terceira; sailing most part of the trip;
• Rainha de Portugal;
• Vasco da Gama
• In transport ship “Pero de Alenquer” (1896)
• Gunboats Coutinho made the cross Lisbon/Lourenço
• Zaire; Marques, only by sailing, following as far as
• Zambeze; possible the historic route of Vasco da Gama,
• Douro; on his journey to India, nearly 400 years
• Limpopo; before. This crossing as came to provide great
• Liberal; teachings for his studies of “Náutica dos
• Sado; Descobrimentos”.
• Pátria
• Transport (School Ship)
• Pero de Alenquer 7
48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting & Exhibit Orlando, FL, January 4-7, 2010
Gago Coutinho and the Aircraft Navigation

 His task assignments, on board of all the ships were almost exclusively of
“officer in charge of navigation” from which resulted the knowledge of the
classic sextant.

 On the Portuguese ship “Foz do Douro”, Coutinho did

a new crossing, sailing from Santos (Brazil) to Leixões
(Portugal) during which sailed 105 days using the
historical astrolabe, like the ancient Portuguese
sailors thereby confirming their views on the routes
followed by them.

 Gago Coutinho crossed the sea serving the Portuguese Navy, covering the South
Atlantic coast to coast and the western Indian Ocean, sailed 30,387 miles
throughout his life.

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48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting & Exhibit Orlando, FL, January 4-7, 2010
Gago Coutinho and the Aircraft Navigation
 In 1885, the Berlin Conference on International Law devotes the recognition of effective
occupation of overseas territories and calls for a more effective territorial division of its
borders. This work requires knowledge of Navigation, Astronomy, Geography and
Mathematics. By the decision of Carlos I, King of Portugal in 1898, Gago Coutinho receives
order to develop this work.

 In its Barotze mission, he crosses

Africa twice and traveled by foot
around 3,250 miles, walking an
average of 26 miles a day, during two
consecutive months. Six of these
twenty two years were spent in the
jungle, living outdoors and sleeping
in tents.

 Coutinho would be also the major driver of geographical studies in Portugal. He proposed
to establish the Geographer Engineer degree that started in Portugal in 1921.

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48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting & Exhibit Orlando, FL, January 4-7, 2010
Gago Coutinho and the Aircraft Navigation

• Jul 1898/Apr 1899 – Demarcation borders – East Timor;

• Sep 1900/Jan 1901 – Delimitation border – Niassa, Mozambique;
• 1901 – Delimitation border – Mozambique/British Central Africa territories.
• Ends 1901 – Demarcation borders – Noqui, Angola;
• Feb 1904/Dec 1905 – Delimitation borders – Tete, Mozambique;
• 1907/1910 – Triangulation – Mozambique/Southern border to Barotze;
• 1913/1914 – Demarcation border – Angola/Rhodesia;
• 1918 – Triangulation – S. Tome and Principe.

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48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting & Exhibit Orlando, FL, January 4-7, 2010
Gago Coutinho and the Aircraft Navigation
 His special appreciation for the unknown, adventure and
machines, that could change the world, were particularly
inherited by the readings of Jules Verne works. His great
spirit of adventure led him to travel Around the World
using all means of transport until he felt attracted by the
great invention of the time, the airplane.

 Coutinho thought that aviation was a vast area of new

scientific discoveries, in which he wanted to apply all the
knowledge and numerous researches that he had
collected either at sea or at land. The almost daily
employment of the sextant that he had done in Africa
during his geographer missions and the detailed
knowledge of the possibilities of this instrument in land
and sea, were more than enough to justify his opinion.

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48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting & Exhibit Orlando, FL, January 4-7, 2010
Gago Coutinho and the Aircraft Navigation
 The First Flight Across the South Atlantic,
happened between March 30th to June 17th 1922,
when Gago Coutinho and Sacadura Cabral flew a
Rolls Royce powered Fairey FIII-D flying boat:

• Lusitânia – At Penedos arrival, the aircraft

floaters were destroyed by the waves crest.

• Portugal – Due to weather conditions, this

aircraft was ended up at Fernando Noronha. They
fly back to Penedos and then proceed their
journey ahead, but due to carburation hiccups
the engine stopped never to restart again.

• Santa Cruz – Finally, the 5,200 miles trip was

concluded, only with internal means of
navigation, after 62 hours of flight.

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48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting & Exhibit Orlando, FL, January 4-7, 2010
Gago Coutinho and the Aircraft Navigation
 References to instruments and
methods created in Portugal were
published in almost all aeronautical
magazines:
• Nautical Magazine (1923);
• United States Naval Proceedings;
• Navigatione Aerea, from Italy;
• Icaro and Boletin Oficial de Aero
Club de España;
• Conquete de l’air, from Belgium;
• L’air; French revue;
• Navigacion Aerea, from J. Aymat,
Barcelona, 1928;
• Avigation, from Bradley Jones,
London, 1931.
48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting & Exhibit
 Gago Coutinho never patented his
invention, which dates back to 1919. He
used it successfully in 1921 and 1922. The
sextant adoption proved itself again a great
precision in the First Night Crossing South
Atlantic flight Lisbon/Rio de Janeiro, 1927
with Captain Jorge Castilho as navigator. .
 Portuguese Navy, who had rights to the
development, contracted with the
prestigious German firm of C. Plath for
production. Coutinho regularly gave to
them details for the improvement of the
sextant until 1938.
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Orlando, FL, January 4-7, 2010
Gago Coutinho and the Aircraft Navigation
 In the IV Congress of the International Air Navigation, Rome, 1927,
Coutinho and Castilho, the Portuguese delegates presented and
defended the Portuguese methods.

 In 1929 Captain Wittenman navigated the Graf Zeppelin around the

world using a Coutinho´s sextant.

 Until 1930, several countries had acquired this instrument: Portugal,

Germany, Japan, France, Spain, U. S. A., Chile, Italy, Netherlands,
Sweden, Argentina and Bolivia.

 In 1932, by the I International Congress of Transoceanic Aviators,

highest honors were given at the Portuguese crossings of the South
Atlantic and their methods of navigation. Many of the major airlines
of the world throughout the 1930’s have used them.

 The Deutsche Lufthansa created an air navigation course in the Naval

School of Lübeck, where they thought the Coutinho´s sextant and its
path corrector. Fr. Nissen managed to expand the path corrector on
air navigation above land, the Coutinho-Fr. Nissen path corrector.
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48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting & Exhibit Orlando, FL, January 4-7, 2010
Gago Coutinho and the Aircraft Navigation
 In 1969, Frank Borman explained that the principle of Gago
Coutinho was present in the Apollo-8 flight. In fact, “a
sextant used in aeronautics for the first time in the world by
the Portuguese genius” was mounted to a telescope, which
indicated that the “final accuracy of the error was 0.001
degree”.

 In 1971, Francis Millet Rogers, from Harvard University write

a book entitled “Precision Astrolabe; Portuguese Navigator
and Transoceanic Aviation” published in Lisbon by Academia
Internacional da Cultura Portuguesa, and distributed in the
U. S. A. by W. S. Sullwold, Tauton, Mass.

 In 1973, Colter, H. C. publishes “An Early Portuguese Contribution to Air Navigation” in

the Journal of Navigation, related with Coutinho´s process of navigation “which made
the calculations on the eve of the flight so that the line position was drawn in the flight
chart nearly 5 minutes after the end of observation, and while crossing the Atlantic South,
close to equator line, this time was reduced to 3 minutes” was an unprecedented
simplification studied by Coutinho.

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48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting & Exhibit Orlando, FL, January 4-7, 2010
Gago Coutinho and the Aircraft Navigation
 Coutinho´s scientific, historical
literary work includes:
• 1 Book;
• 17 communications to the
Portuguese Sciences Academy;
• 2 Communications to the Portuguese
Academy of History;
• 2 communications to the Geographic
Society of Lisbon;
• 6 International Congress Thesis;
• 3 National Congress Thesis;
• 23 Conferences;
• 25 Speeches;
• 2 Lectures;
• 5 Reports;
• 27 Collaborations with the
Geographic Society of Lisbon;
• 16 Collaborations with Naval Military
Club.
48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting & Exhibit
and  Published numerous works in periodic
publications, many of them having been
put together, organized and prefaced by
Commander Moura Brás:
• “A Náutica dos Descobrimentos”
• “Os Descobrimentos Marítimos vistos
por um navegador: colectânea de
artigos, conferências e trabalhos
inéditos do Almirante Gago
Coutinho”, Lisbon, Agência Geral do
Ultramar, 1951-1952, in two volumes.
 Many other texts were published and
edited by Teixeira da Mota:
• “Obras completas de Gago Coutinho”,
Lisbon, Junta de Investigações do
Ultramar, 1972, in two volumes.
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Orlando, FL, January 4-7, 2010
Gago Coutinho and the Aircraft Navigation
 Other more important journeys on its own appointments are:

• 1898/99 – Aden/Ceylon/Singapore/Timor/Macau/Hong Kong/Shanghai

/Yokohama/Hawaii/San Francisco/Chicago/Niagara/New York/Liverpool /Lisbon;

• 1927 – Lisbon/Funchal/Rio de Janeiro/New York/Paris/Lisbon;

• 1933 – Train Crossing: Angola/Mozambique;

• 1935 – Excursion to North Cape (Lat. 82º N);

• 1939 – Lisbon/Rio de Janeiro/Pará/Panama Canal/Hollywood/Santa Fé/S.

Francisco/Great Canyon/Kansas City/Chicago/Niagara/New York/ Paris;

• Lisbon/Rio de Janeiro: 1923; 1925; 1927; 1929; 1931; 1932; 1934; 1936; 1938; 1939;
1941; 1943; 1945; 1946 and in 1955 – DC-4 of TAP, Transportes Aéreos Portugueses
with the purpose of study the organization of regular flights to Brazil.

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48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting & Exhibit Orlando, FL, January 4-7, 2010
Gago Coutinho and the Aircraft Navigation
Some Portuguese and Foreign Military Honoristic insignias given to Coutinho:

Grand Crosses of the: “Ordem

Militar da Torre, Espada, Valor,
Lealdade e Mérito”; “Ordem Militar
de Avis”; “Ordem Militar de Cristo”;
“Ordem Militar de Santiago da
Espada”.

Grand Cross of the “Ordem de

Mérito Aeronáutico” (Brazil);
Commander Cross of the “Legion
d’Honneur” (France); Grand Cross of
the “Ordine della Corona de Italia”
(Italy); Grand Cross of the “Orden
Militar” (Spain); Grand Cross of the
“l´Orde du Roi Leopold” (Belgium)
and Grand Cross of the “Ordem
Nacional do Cruzeiros do Sul”
(Brazil). 18
48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting & Exhibit Orlando, FL, January 4-7, 2010
Gago Coutinho and the Aircraft Navigation
 1923 – Commissioned to undertake the study of the experimental results of modern
methods of aerial survey in Italy, France and Brazil;

 1926 – Honorary Director of the Portuguese Naval Aviation, earning the right to use the
pilot aviator distinctive topped with two palms;

 1928 – Chairman of the Committee of Reorganization of Geographical, Cadastral and

Cartographic Data.

 1928 – Commissioned to carry out mapping studies in France and Italy, and shortly
thereafter sent to Brazil to take stock of cartographic documents relevant to the History
of Portugal;

 1936 – Advisor Committee of the Historical Exhibition Occupation of the first Congress of
the Portuguese Expansion in the world;

 Published works on the theory of restricted relativity;

 Honorary Fellow of the Club de Engenharia do Rio de Janeiro;

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48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting & Exhibit Orlando, FL, January 4-7, 2010
Gago Coutinho and the Aircraft Navigation
 Doctor Honoris Causa by the Universidade de Lisboa and Faculdade de Engenharia do
Porto;

 Member of the “Academia de Ciências de Lisboa” (since 1928); member of the “Academia
de Ciências de Portugal”; member of the “Academia de História”; member of the
“Instituto de História e Geografia do Rio de Janeiro”; honorary member and Gold Medal
of the “Sociedade Geográfica de Lisboa”, and member of the “Sociedade Geográfica do
Rio de Janeiro”, Pernambuco, Baía and Espírito Santo;

 During World War I (1914-1918), he drew secret routes allowing that ships could escape to
the enemy submarines and aided the Allied blockade against the Kaiser´s Empire. It was
an anonymous hero who saved thousands of lives.

 He died in Lisbon a day after completing ninety years, in February 18th 1959.

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48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting & Exhibit Orlando, FL, January 4-7, 2010
Gago Coutinho and the Aircraft Navigation
In 1969 (his centenary birth), and in 1972 (50th year of
the First air Crossing of the South Atlantic), Portugal,
Angola, Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe and East
Timor issued several stamps, honoring Coutinho. In
2009 (50th year of his death), Portugal issued a postcard.

Between 1972/1975, Mozambique issued

three bank notes paying tribute to Gago
Coutinho. Between 1978/1986 a bank note
was issued in Portugal honoring the
Admiral.

The Marinha de Guerra

Portuguêsa, to honor Coutinho,
christened two ships with his
name: Frigate F473, and the
Investigation and Research ship
A523.
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48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting & Exhibit Orlando, FL, January 4-7, 2010
Gago Coutinho and the Aircraft Navigation
 Gago Coutinho was born in Lisbon on the 17th February 1869. He served the Portuguese
Navy almost exclusively as “officer in charge of navigation”.

 By 1919, he develops a new model of sextant that could be used to measure the altitude of
a star without the need of the sea horizon, and used it successfully in the first Crossing of
the South Atlantic in 1922.

 Due to his knowledge of Navigation, Astronomy, Geography and Mathematics, Gago

Coutinho received several important official medals and prizes, including the PhD Honoris
Causa from the Universities of Lisbon and Oporto, and authored several scientific
publications. He had important missions in Africa and Asia where he employed his
scientific knowledge.

 He continues his work by improving its sextant (called by Coutinho as “Precision

Astrolabe”) till 1938. Its work was successfully used in Astronautics fifty years after its
first use in Aeronautics.

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