V.l.f. Techniques for Navigation

Extract

Mr. Blake has given us an outline of what is needed in the context of Navigation of Long-Range Subsonic Transports in the 1970's. I now intend to pursue the theme by saying what I think v.l.f. navigation techniques can contribute to the solution of the navigation problem. In particular, I want to talk very briefly about the contributions that we feel v.l.f. might make towards the particular problem of limiting the numbers of aircraft which creep beyond Mr. Blake's navigation tolerance ‘fringe’ in addition to, possibly, by adding navigational information, increasing the effective M.T.B.F. of the total navigation system.

Clearly, addition of equipment cannot reduce M.T.B.F. in the narrow sense of the term—more equipment must have more faults—but if one interprets ‘fault’ as the incidence of a navigation error beyond the specified limit rather than narrowly as an electronic malfunction, I do think that v.l.f. navigation has its contribution to make to effective M.T.B.F.