NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Bearings, Courses, Headings, and Tracks
From: Dan Allen
Date: 2002 Feb 5, 15:28 -0800
From: Dan Allen
Date: 2002 Feb 5, 15:28 -0800
From the American Heritage Dictionary are the following quite ambiguous definitions: bearing n. Direction, especially angular direction measured from one position to another using geographical or celestial reference lines. course n. 1. Onward movement in a particular direction; progress. 2. The direction of continuing movement: took a northern course. heading n. The course or direction in which a ship or an aircraft is moving. track n. A path along which something moves; a course: following the track of an airplane on radar. Here are my own definitions that I use to keep things straight in my mind, and they correspond to Garmin GPS labels as well! ;-) The **course** is the direction you want to go from postion A to B. One is rarely on this line, especially in a car. It is the theoretical "as the crow flies" path, with a constant compass heading. The **bearing** is where B is with respect to your current position. It has nothing to do with A. It has everything to do with answering the question "which way do I need to go right now in order to get to B"? The **track** is the current compass direction you are heading. The track has nothing to do with where A or B is with respect to you. It is only about what direction you are currently going. I don't use the word **heading** much for the reasons that were pointed out by Jared Sherman. Dan Daniel K. Allen mailto:danallen46@attbi.com http://home.attbi.com/~danallen46/