The Earth's Magnetic Field

Extract

The Institute has now completed two years of its existence. The papers which have been read before it during these two years have covered a wide range of subjects and have served to emphasize the many ramifications of the science of navigation. Because of the high speed of modern aircraft, air navigation presents more problems and of greater variety than surface navigation, but even on the problems of surface navigation there has been ample scope for a wide range of discussion. The Institute has taken a prominent part in the discussion of the proposals for the revision of the Abridged Nautical Almanac. It might with some reason have been supposed that there was nothing more to be said on the methods of reducing astro-sights and determining position at sea. The problem is perfectly straightforward and there is a limit to the number of different ways in which the spherical triangle can be solved. But the essential basic data can be presented in a variety of ways, while there are many possible methods of presenting tables for the solution of the spherical triangle. The decision to use Greenwich hour angle instead of right ascension in the Abridged Nautical Almanac has followed its adoption in the Air Almanac; the revised Almanac will have an entirely different format from the present, while the methods of reducing sights must be correspondingly modified.