NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
RIP the [Fluxgate compass /benefits of 3 axis] ?
From: Jared Sherman
Date: 2002 Feb 3, 13:09 -0500
From: Jared Sherman
Date: 2002 Feb 3, 13:09 -0500
George, with all this talk about the uncorrectable problems inherent in fluxgate compasses it seems that there is a point going unspoken. Perhaps if these errors are all so damaging, the fluxgate compass is an obsolete artifact that should be abandoned along with the sunstone and the astrolabe. Why spend the time trying to correct an inherently unreliable technological deadend, when a cheap and simple 3-dimensional WAAS GPS system can tell you the speed, position and attitude of your vessel? Employ several high accuracy WAAS GPS devices on board (one at bow, one at stern, one to each midships beam) and you should be able to generate some interesting real-time information on vessel position in all three axes as well as the true heading of the vessel. Why mess around with geomagnetic solutions at all if there is a cheaper and more reliable way to get the information?
