Imagine standing at the North Pole, at the very point where all the north/south longitudinal meridians of the earth’s globe intersect. You want to go south to your home. South lies in front of you, to your left, to your right, as well as behind you. One of those southerly meridians leads directly to Greenwich, England; another leads to the middle of the Pacific Ocean; only one “south” will take you home.

At one time Keith Greenaway was the only aerial navigator in the world who could direct exactly how to get where you wanted to go from that imaginary geographical pinnacle. Today he is the acknowledged master of aerial navigation in the high polar regions. In actual fact, immediately following World War II Keith pioneered, developed, and refined Arctic air exploration.

Accurate navigation in the north is immensely complicated because the geographic pole (the place where you were imaginatively standing in the first paragraph) does not correspond exactly with the magnetic pole (the place to which the compass needle points). In 1995, for instance, the magnetic pole was in the Noice Peninsula on Ellef Ringnes Island, hundreds of miles from the geographic pole. In the year 2185, give or take 20 years, the meandering magnetic pole will actually bisect the geographic polar position.

Accordingly, a very large area of magnetic compass unreliability exists for aerial navigators throughout the entire magnetic pole region. For approximately 1,200 miles from east to west and 2,000 miles north to south, the magnetic compass is completely unreliable as a directional indicator, primarily because of very strong magnetic influences.

In the absence of a useful magnetic compass, the aerial navigator must determine an accurate method of assessing direction. Understandably, ability to establish headings is essential. No less important is the ability to maintain proper headings once they have been established.

Kenneth Maclure, Group Captain of the Royal Canadian Air Force, was a staff member of the Empire Air Navigation School in England. In April 1945, at the conclusion of a longrange polar flight in an Aries aircraft of the Royal Air Force, the EANS staff visited the RCAF Station at Rivers, Manitoba. It was there that Keith Greenaway, then attached to the RCAF's Central Navigation School, heard from Maclure of the difficulties involved in Arctic aerial navigation and of Maclure's early study of a grid system aimed at simplifying the plotting of navigational headings in the North.

Within a year following his encounter with Maclure, Greenaway was afforded a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to develop and test his own modified grid system. He was posted to the Canadian section of the United States Air Force's B29 Superfortress Detachment at Edmonton, Alberta. There he was involved with the USAF in modifying Maclure's pioneering grid system for practical use in the western hemisphere. Greenaway at the time was a navigator on board the first American military aircraft to cross the north geographic pole on May 9, 1946.

While creating a navigational polar grid for Arctic aerial navigation, Greenaway, in early 1947 discovered the wandering ice island later named T3. The huge ice mass was subsequently equipped with weather instruments that provided to Canada and the rest of the world valuable information about Arctic conditions.  

Photographed while recording a description of   the flight to the geographic pole, March 29,  19S4, for Leonard W. Brockington, right, first   chairman of the Canadian Broadcasting  Corporation. The Honourable Brooke Claxton, Minister of National Defence, centre, and Keith  Greenaway are looking on. This was the first   flight to the North Pole by a member of the   Cabinet of the Government of Canada. The   photograph was taken shortly after circling  the Pole and on the way back to Resolute Bay.   [Photo, courtesy RCAF Archives]

The multi-talented Keith Greenaway was born in Victoria County, Ontario, in 1916. After attending the Canadian Electronics Institute in Toronto, he joined the RCAF in 1940. During World War II he trained navigators and wireless air gunners of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.

From the mid-forties into the sixties, Keith Greenaway continued to take advantage of the improving capabilities of directional gyroscopes to develop further an accurate and reliable system of aerial navigation in the polar regions of the Arctic. Thereafter until he retired from the Canadian Armed Forces in 1971, Brigadier-General Keith Greenaway served as Air Advisor to the Chief of the Air Staff of the Royal Malaysian Air Force.

Greenaway has received many awards and recognitions for his aerial navigational work in the Arctic. These include the Thurlow Award in 1951 from the United States Institute of

Navigation for his contribution to navigational science, the McKee Trans-Canada Trophy in 1952 for contributions to Arctic flying, the Massey Medal in 1960 for outstanding personal achievement and contributions to the development of Canada, induction as a premier member in Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame in 1973, Companion of the Order of Icarus for contributions to manned flight.

This dedicated Canadian, who has made Arctic aerial transportation less complex, has been an editor, author, coauthor and contributor to various international aerial publications. In 1956 with Moira Dunbar he co-authored the prominently important Arctic Canada from the Air.

A.J. Bauer