HEADING REFERENCES FOR HIGH-SPEED AIRCRAFT

Walter Pagels

Peer Reviewed

Abstract: There are a number of methods for navigating an aircraft over the surface of the earth. In the broad sense these can be divided into two categories: position fising and dead reckoning. Position fixing is accomplished by noting visible landmarks, by radio fixing, such as with loran, TACAN, and Decca, by radar map matching, by earth’s magnetic field intensity and dip measurements, and by astronomical observations. Dead reckoning is the computation of a ship’s position using heading, velocity, and time to determine the change from the last known position. Dead reckoning requires only velocity data and a heading reference as inputs to a navigational computer to determine the positional change of the aircraft over the surface of the earth. The usual directional reference is either true north for conventional latitude-longitude navigation or displaced north for grid navigation or great circle navigation.
Published in: NAVIGATION: Journal of the Institute of Navigation, Volume 9, Number 2
Pages: 114 - 123
Cite this article: Pagels, Walter, "HEADING REFERENCES FOR HIGH-SPEED AIRCRAFT", NAVIGATION: Journal of The Institute of Navigation, Vol. 9, No. 2, Summer 1962, pp. 114-123.
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