The recent history and background of the Channel Navigation Information Service (CNIS) have been well documented in this journal by my illustrious forebears, Captain Richard Emden and Commander James Neill. Whilst this paper describes some of the changes in the service since those papers were published, it may be appropriate to review the key events in the introduction of what was once a unique initiative, and remind the reader of the operational doctrine and philosophy of the system.

Most readers of this Journal will know a good deal about the long-established practice of setting adrift in the sea sealed bottles or other watertight vessels containing messages or questionnaire papers. There are numerous records stretching over a very long term of years of this having been done with the aim of conveying information—often in a jovial sort of way, but sometimes when it was feared that a ship seemed likely to be lost. In the latter case to which very few authentic records relate, mariners fearing the worst adopted the practice for obvious enough reasons. In the former case, records of the practice are legion and, a century or so ago, it was a common thing for floating bottles with papers inside to be flung overboard from outbound emigrant ships. The habit was still fairly common in much more recent times, and the writer once had quite a goodly number of missives recovered from stranded beer and wine bottles which, after the conclusion of a farewell party, had been thrown out from ships bound for America from the Elbe and other departure points. Generally speaking, such corked bottles were used empty (apart from the enclosed message), and so would perform journeys decided in large part by the winds. Where a serious intent lay behind the launching of a bottle designed to convey true news of distress, no very strong hopes could ever have been reposed in the glass messenger, since there could never have been any idea as to when it might go ashore and be found. It is probable that many bottles carrying messages of the sort have, over the years, been broken on rocky coasts or have stranded on unvisited shores perhaps to suffer burial in shifting sands.

Before considering in detail the instrumentation involved, it is necessary to establish first of all what is meant by microwave radiometry and mention briefly its possible applications. A radiometer is a device for measuring heat radiation and the title ‘Microwave Radiometry’ is a little surprising in that it implies heat radiation at microwave frequencies. In fact a consideration of the underlying physics shows that heat radiation and electrical thermal noise are indeed the same phenomenon, although their properties were investigated independently by physicists and electrical engineers. This concept is particularly valuable in microwave radiometry, where the electronic techniques are appropriate to ultrasensitive noise measurements, but the system applications are most easily visualized in terms of heat, or, more particularly, temperature.

The Eva G. R. Taylor Lectures were founded in 1959 to mark the occasion of Professor Taylor's 80th birthday. Following an appeal signed by the Presidents of various learned bodies, including the Institute, it was agreed to endow an annual lecture to be presented by a distinguished scholar in any of the branches of learning to which Professor Taylor made such notable contributions. Rear Admiral Ritchie's lecture was presented at the Annual General Meeting of the Institute held in London on 26 October 1966, with the President, Rear Admiral Sir Edmund Irving, K.B.E., C.B., in the Chair.

Radar transponders and radar target enhancers have been in use in a variety of applications for many years. Perhaps the most widely-known applications of radar transponders are in Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) and its civilian counterpart, secondary surveillance radar for air traffic control, and as racons in marine navigation and, most recently, as Search And Rescue Transponders (SART) in the Global Marine Distress and Safety System (GMDSS).

The ability to map terrain by means of an airborne radar raises many possibilities. Some few years ago it was recognized that a mapping radar which scanned to the side of an aircraft (rather than ahead) might, additionally, have important military potential. The research described here concerns the early operator evaluation of a prototype sidescan equipment which promised, among other things, to permit accurate fix-point navigation at lower flight altitudes.

By recent standards our aircraft was to progress at a fairly gentlemanly rate, somewhat below the speed of sound. Hence the radar map, produced as a moving strip by a rapid photo-development technique, did not threaten to flash past the navigator's eyes at an impossible speed. Nor, in general, did we expect the operator to be provided with anything unsatisfactory in the way of briefing. What is more, the navigator would be able to devote his undivided attention to the radar material whenever a fix-point was due.

The Amoco Cadiz and the Work of the Institute. Seaborne trade calls for international agreement but it is not a matter that attracts much public attention. That is why, as Beattie has pointed out very clearly in his paper ‘Traffic Routing at Sea 1957–1977’ presented to the Institute on 14 December 1977, all the major steps taken to bring some order into the regulation of maritime traffic have been due to the initiative of mariners or maritime organizations. International action was only taken later, to give a legal sanction to such proposals as were felt to be necessary. In any case there was no international authority until 1958 when IMCO (the Inter-governmental Maritime Consultative Organization) took over the direction of maritime affairs between the International Safety of Life at Sea Conferences, and these were not convened at regular intervals. One can easily see that under these conditions progress was slow, depending as it did on either the initiative of seafaring people or on some turn of events that demanded a new approach.

Having studied marine statistics for a number of years, especially those concerning casualties at sea and in particular collisions between ships, the opening paragraph of the Traffic Separation Working Group's report (this Journal, 19, 4) is, to say the least, lacking confirmatory evidence on two counts.

I refer to the general statements which allege that:

(i) ‘The main risk at sea today arises not as it used to from stranding and shipwreck, but from collision’.

(ii) ‘In the open sea, where nearly 30 per cent of all collisions occur…’

As both include the words ‘at sea’ or ‘open sea’ it is not unreasonable to suppose that they imply freedom to manœuvre under own power unhampered by depth of water or similar navigational restriction.

This being so, and not an irrational definition of the area of concern to the Working Party, what are the facts and how exactly do casualties at sea compare with those in other areas of marine interest throughout the world.

To find the right answer to the global problem is not easy and there are no short cuts, such as for example making a sample analysis in a limited area where traffic density is high, in order to arrive at fairly large numbers which are then used to deduce the statistical probability applicable to all areas.

This Anderson Memorial Lecture was given to the Boscombe Down branch of the Institute on 19 February 2004. In the lecture Pinky Grocott, a distinguished navigator and past President of the Institute, recounts the history of the formation of Ferry Command set up to ensure the safe and efficient delivery of aircraft from North America to the UK during World War II. He then provides personal insights into his role as a young first-tour RAF navigator employed in the Command and describes the contemporary navigation practice.

Operational research has been developed and introduced into air transportation problems since the late 1940s, mainly in the U.K. and the U.S.A., and simulation techniques have also been used for designing or evaluating air traffic control systems. Some data on the actual operations are needed for carrying out these studies. The data on the time and motion of taxiing aircraft, especially jet aircraft, were collected at Tokyo International Airport (TIA) in 1975 and 1976 and the relation between average taxi speed and taxi distance was stated on the basis of the observed data. In this paper, a theoretical method for estimating the average taxi speed of departing aircraft is considered, using simplified models, and the results are compared with the empirical data.

In this paper, presented by the International Air Navigators Council, and written by its Executive Vice Chairman, the navigation of the S.S.T. is considered from the practising navigator's point of view. Extrapolating from present procedures the conclusion is drawn that navigation system verification should continue to be the responsibility of flight-deck management, that self-contained D.R. systems should be monitored by an externally referenced aid, that raw navigational data should continue to be available to the flight crew and finally that simplicity and reliability in navigation systems should be preferred to finite accuracy.

Consideration of an environment in which operational data and experience are limited to the military is a difficult assignment at the best of times. In order to discuss, with some degree of intelligence, the long-range navigation system considered desirable in the supersonic environment, we have relied mainly on the process of extrapolation using existing data and operational ‘know how’ to formulate practical guidelines.

For some years the principal maritime nations have provided sea-going and future Masters and mates with some form of radar simulator training. These training courses, although differing in duration, subject material, training method and technique, had one common aim: to familiarize responsible sea-going personnel with radar as an instrument. They taught understanding of the various instrument controls, picture or display interpretation, plotting and anti-collision tactics based on the existing international Rules of the Road and Admiralty Court jurisprudence: and all this for open-sea conditions where the Master is sole master of the situation and with no outside adviser at his disposal. Many Masters and mates have followed these very necessary and useful training courses and many more will undoubtedly follow, for nobody should today go to sea in a responsible position as Master or officer of the watch without such training. Recently, pilot authorities have started to send their pilots to the same courses and again this is a step in the right direction.

A recent survey by Burger and Corbet (Welsh Institute of Technology) has furthermore shown that those trained do not seem to obtain full advantage of the acquired knowledge, once they are back in actual practice. This fact plus the fast technical advances in electronics and consequently new radar techniques should eventually lead to the institution of refresher courses.

Whilst unmanned aircraft (UMA) can be said to encompass missiles, targets for weapon training, preprogrammed reconnaissance drones and civilian systems such as radio-controlled models used to carry cameras, for the purpose of this paper we will restrict ourselves to aircraft which are capable of sustaining autonomous flight and accepting navigation commands whilst airborne. The terms applied to unmanned aircraft are variously UMA, remotely piloted vehicle (RPV), Drone and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV).

Det Norske Veritas is a Norwegian ship classification society with a large classified fleet registered in 94 countries. The paper printed below was presented by Mr Cuming at an Ordinary Meeting of the Institute held in London on 18 May 1983 with Dr J. F. Kemp in the Chair.

Risk analysis is a method of evaluating potential risks which has been used for the past ten years by Det Norske Veritas, in both the shipping and the offshore fields of operations. The method is based on the systematic identification of hazards, the estimation of probability of occurrence and the evaluation of consequences.