NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Pilots and Mariners
From: Wallace Venable
Date: 2002 Feb 7, 17:39 -0500
From: Wallace Venable
Date: 2002 Feb 7, 17:39 -0500
>>> griffiths_chuck@SI.COM 02/07/02 04:42PM >>> >> Most pilots flying around the states plotting their "courses" on aeronautical charts are plotting rhumb lines on Mercator projections. Pilots, for the most part aren't taught to distinguish between rhumb line courses and great circle courses. I remember being taught that aeronautical charts are Lambert Conic projections, and that courses plotted are a good approximation of Great Circles. You run a plotter (protractor) across a longitude line. These actually converge slightly, although this isn't apparent at middle latitudes.. You don't "slide over" to a compass rose or a chart border.
