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As so often with nav stuff, there is a simple answer (its where a portion of
a circle touches a line, the earth is a sphere, a sea mile is 1.852
kilometres, etc) and then, just when you think that's clear, you find its
not quite so simple ...

Thanks to Bill and to Doug Royer for this.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Royer, Doug"

> I believe it means to touch or attempt to touch.When a tangent curve is
> viewed it gets closer and closer to the object (the finer the measurements
> of the tangent curve the closer to the object)  or line but never really
> touches it.As I see it the arc touches the LOP at a single point.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Noyce, Bill"
> In this context, a circle is tangent to a line when
> it just "kisses" the line -- approaches, touches, and
> then departs on the same side of the line.  The place
> where it touches is the part of the line closest to
> the circle's center, and the circle's radius at that
> point meets the line at right angles.
>
> In trigonometry, the tangent function tan(theta) is
> defined as sin(theta)/cos(theta) -- I think there's a
> way of drawing triangles and circles so the name makes
> sense with the previous definition.

   

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