LORAN

Lieutenant Commander Fletcher G. Watson and Henrietta H. Swope

Peer Reviewed

Abstract:	Loran is already accepted by military navigators as comparable in accuracy and reliability to the long-established methods of celestial navigation. While prewar radio ranges and radio direction- finding were not reliable at ranges exceeding 150 to 200 nautical miles, loran provides patterns of fined lines of position to ranges of 1,400 miles from the shore-based transmitters. Special loran charts show these patterns ready for immediate use. Even at the extreme range, the accuracy of loran lines is comparable with that of lines obtained from celestial observations. Only severe static, which blocks all other radio devices, can hamper or prevent the use of loran, but such severe conditions are fortunately rare. Other advantages of loran can be briefly summarized. A three-line fix can be obtained in less than ten minutes. Loran is equally useful on ships and aircraft. The equipment is relatively small-an aircraft installation weighs only about thirty-five pounds. These advantages have made military navigators enthusiastic about loran ; many already consider it the primary aid to navigation. In peacetime its use by commercial air and surface carriers should prove equally valuable.
Published in:	NAVIGATION: Journal of the Institute of Navigation, Volume 1, Number 1
Pages:	11 - 15
Cite this article:	Watson, Lieutenant Commander Fletcher G., Swope, Henrietta H., "LORAN", NAVIGATION: Journal of The Institute of Navigation, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1946, pp. 11-15.
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