NavList:

Frank Reed you wrote: Someone please remind me: in aerial celestial navigation what do you call sights that yield LOPs that are parallel to the estimated ground track and sights with LOPs that are perpendicular to the ground track? I know we've discussed this before. I don't recall the terminology (formal or informal). Thanks in advance.

As far as I recall, in the RAF they were called ‘fore and aft shots’ if you were shooting fore and aft and ‘beam shots’ if you were shooting on the beam.  I don’t recall ever using the terms ‘speed lines' and ‘course lines'.  However, it is true to say that to minimise acceleration errors maintaining a steady speed was most important for a fore and aft shot, and maintain a steady heading was most important for a beam shot.  Moreover, with the advent of AP3270/HO249 ‘Selected Stars’ you were stuck with whichever stars you were offered and rarely were these fore and aft or athwartships. 

It remains to be said that in the Services you do what you’re taught using the equipment and documents you’re given to do it with.  However, this does not mean that for specialist work e.g. competition V Force v SAC your directing staff might not alter procedures using appropriate documents to run into a scored finishing point on course and on time.  DaveP