Alfred Lee Loomis was an American attorney, investment banker, philanthropist, scientist, physicist, inventor of the LORAN Long Range Navigation System and a lifelong patron of scientific research. He established the Loomis Laboratory in Tuxedo Park, New York, and his role in the development of radar and the atomic bomb contributed to the Allied victory in World War II. He invented the Aberdeen Chronograph for measuring muzzle velocities, contributed significantly to the development of a ground-controlled approach technology for aircraft, and participated in preliminary meetings of the Manhattan Project.
Alfred Loomis at Berkeley in 1940
Loomis as a student at Phillips Academy
A March 1940 meeting at the University of California at Berkeley concerning the planned 184-inch cyclotron (seen on the blackboard), from left to right: Ernest O. Lawrence, Arthur H. Compton, Vannevar Bush, James B. Conant, Karl T. Compton, and Loomis
LORAN, short for long range navigation, was a hyperbolic radio navigation system developed in the United States during World War II. It was similar to the UK's Gee system but operated at lower frequencies in order to provide an improved range up to 1,500 miles (2,400 km) with an accuracy of tens of miles. It was first used for ship convoys crossing the Atlantic Ocean, and then by long-range patrol aircraft, but found its main use on the ships and aircraft operating in the Pacific theater during World War II.
The AN/APN-4 was an airborne LORAN receiver used into the 1960s. It was built in two parts to match the UK's Gee system, and could be swapped with Gee in a few minutes.
AN/APN-4 LORAN in RCAF Canso (PBY) aircraft.
R-65/APN-9 in a B-17G aircraft
LORAN chart of the Yellow Sea, 1944