The existence of marine science is commonly believed to date from the great Challenger Expedition which sailed in 1872. Indeed John Young Buchanan, the Expedition's chemist, held that oceanography started on one particular day in 1873, the day of Challenger's Station I when she first dredged in the depths of the North Atlantic south of Tenerife. In fact, as anyone who has read Margaret Deacon's Scientists and the Sea knows very well, marine science has grown gradually over the centuries, at rates depending on individuals and the environment in which they found themselves.

Operational experience to date has shown that while inertial navigators are more consistently accurate than some pessimists predicted, this accuracy is only achievable given correct pilot handling before take-off. The purpose of this paper is to examine some of the operational considerations involved in pre-flight handling and to indicate some engineering developments which promise to ease the pilot's task and thus contribute to the overall utility and accuracy of inertial navigation.

In the summer of 1972 my intention had been to sail up the west coast of Greenland to Baffin Bay (the North Water of whaling days) to land somewhere on the south-east coast of Ellesmere Island and if possible climb a mountain. As the great Von Moltke used to remind his staff, few plans withstand contact with the enemy, and this plan had to be dropped. Since ice conditions in the Canadian Arctic were severe this forced change of plan should have been welcome but in fact it proved fatal.

The paper outlines a method used for forecasting the growth in aircraft movements between city pairs and at terminal areas, region by region, by 1985. It also determines the year by which this growth will have been achieved if the rate of growth is higher or lower than assumed. These results are examined in relation to the magnitude of the task which can be expected to face the industry in the mid-1980s. The paper was presented at the 19th Technical Conference of I.A.T.A., Dublin, October 1972.

In order to have any meaningful discussion on the handling of air traffic in the long-term future it is essential to have some idea of what will be the traffic volume. For the purposes of this paper the period of the mid-1980s has been chosen for the following reasons. Firstly there is a need to establish long-term system objectives; in the past we have tended endlessly to patch up existing systems without any clear idea of where we wanted to get to. The motto ‘evolution not revolution’ is important but it is meaningful only if we have a clear target for the evolutionary process. Secondly the period chosen, fifteen or so years hence, is far enough ahead to permit airlines and governments to amortize existing investments and should permit discussions free from inhibitions of an industrial nature such as fears of redundancy.

This paper proposes that the navigation and control of all airliners should be automated from take-off to landing. Each aircraft will fly according to a prescribed flight plan, to be fulfilled in position, altitude and time within prescribed tolerances. The optimal flight plan is elaborated by a central air traffic control station and transmitted by data link to an airborne computer which monitors the navigation of the aircraft. The navigation itself is based on an integrated Inertial/DME/DME system. Separate airways are proposed for the general aviation. The paper was presented at the 19th Technical Conference of I.A.T.A., Dublin, October 1972.

The permanent growth of air traffic demands rigorous regulation. The most efficient form of regulation is the careful elaboration of a flight plan, taking into account the total air traffic in the area and the rigorous fulfilment of this flight plan. The flight plan will be elaborated at a central air traffic control station by computer, taking into account both air traffic and the meteorological conditions, especially wind. This flight plan is transferred by radio to the computer in the aircraft and comprises essentially the three-dimensional coordinates of take-off point, destination and way points as well as the corresponding times; also the precomputed values of ground speed, rate of climb and rate of descent.

This paper describes a precision position and time service which could support the increased air traffic of the future, with an example of its application to air traffic control. Horizontal position and epoch time distribution are provided by Loran-C and vertical position by digital barometric altimetry. The proposed use of these systems for horizontal navigation, vertical positioning and landing approach is based on their successful use by current high-speed aircraft. The paper was presented at the 19th Technical Conference of I.A.T.A., Dublin, October 1972.

The problems of integrating aircraft using area navigation into the terminal A.T.C. environment are discussed. It is concluded that area navigation systems currently available are incompatible with current terminal A.T.C. approach sequencing and that integration is only possible in the context of both computer assistance to the approach controller and data link between the A.T.C. computer and the aircraft navigation system. The benefits of Terminal Area Navigation are briefly considered and it is suggested that the deployment of vertical navigation in a procedural role might be the better first step. The paper was presented at the 19th Technical Conference of I.A.T.A., Dublin, 1972. Crown copyright.

Currently available area navigation (R NAV) systems range from simple station-oriented single waypoint systems, allowing flight on paths which do not coincide with VOR radials, to complex systems in principle enabling flight from origin to destination along a pre-programmed route, including flight on a standard terminal arrival route (from holding point or feeder-fix to the approach gate). As far as Terminal Area Navigation is concerned it appears that the main objective to the R Nav system designers has been to provide a system which enables automatic navigation along the standard terminal arrival routes, as depicted in the Jeppeson Charts, and to display to the pilot his progress along the route. It appears that designers of the more sophisticated systems have tacitly assumed that when an R Nav aircraft enters the terminal area A.T.C. will be able and willing to allocate it such a route.

A joint study is being made by C.A.A. and R.A.E. of the operation of S.T.O.L. aircraft in terminal areas, with particular reference to airport capacity. In this paper we present some results of this study concerning a single S.T.O.L./R.T.O.L. runway, to show in particular the marked effect that the need to separate aircraft for turbulent wake considerations could have on this capacity. There is considerable advantage to be gained with the heavier aircraft if this turbulent wake effect is reduced by aircraft design. The paper was presented at the 19th Technical Conference of I.A.T.A., Dublin, 1972.

The development of short take-off and landing aircraft (S .T. O. L.) is being considered as one means of containing the expected growth in passenger and cargo traffic without necessarily incurring the cost and disturbance to the environment involved in building large airports for conventional aircraft (C.T.O.L.). Also for a comparable cost to that of building a C.T.O.L. airport, a number of S.T.O.L. ports can be built, thus making air travel more convenient for a larger number of people. In the system study of S.T.O.L. operations, the capacity (movements per hour) of a S.T.O.L. port is a significant parameter. A research study of future S.T.O.L. operations, using an existing airport complex as an illustration, has been carried out in the U.K. This study involved considerations both as to reducing the noise effects on the community and to increasing capacity, in order to match the future anticipated demand. This paper is limited to the capacity of a hypothetical single S.T.O.L. runway.

The Dover Strait is not the most congested stretch of narrow water in the world but it is the gateway used by ships of almost every kind on passage to and from nearly all the important ports in northwest Europe, Scandinavia and the United Kingdom. While the recent increase in shipping may not continue at its present rate, the modern trend towards larger vessels and higher speeds has enhanced the hazards to navigation in narrow waters and port approaches, while the volume and nature of modern cargoes have dramatically increased the risk of widespread pollution in the event of any major snipping casualty.

In recent years there has been a growing concern about the continuing occurrence of casualties in the Dover Strait. The unfortunate incidents in the Varne area early in 1971 raised questions about how casualties occur and what circumstances or combinations of circumstances are most likely to lead to a collision or stranding. Information was also required as a basis for estimating the risk of a casualty occurring in the Dover Strait and for assessing the effectiveness of proposals for improving the safety of navigation.

The estimation of collision danger is often required by harbour authorities and others for planning fairways or for increasing the safety of navigation. Fujii1 gives an approximate formula for the probability of collision in a waterway where the density of traffic, the size distribution of ships and the average speed are known. Fujii's formula is however only applicable where the traffic has been surveyed and traffic patterns are well known. Some simple method is required for estimating collision danger, especially for harbours where traffic patterns are complicated and the information available on marine traffic engineering is comparatively small.

Like any other vehicle a ship needs to be started, stopped and steered safely; the art of doing this is sometimes called ship handling. Successful ship handling depends upon three distinct operations: acquiring the right information, making the right decisions and performing the right manoeuvres. In this paper we assume that the Captain has all the facts and knows the right thing to do, and examine the physical ability of the ship as a mechanism to respond to his will.

Few will deny the merits of the knot as a unit of speed. It does in one syllable what all other units of speed take three or more to do. It is accepted and used by a great many countries, including those like France which show a general preference for the metric system. Aviation has taken to it as well as shipping. It is not therefore surprising that the full acceptance of the Système International d'Unités (or S.I.) is meeting with some opposition when it offers to supplant the knot.