Amelia Earhart Search Forum > Celestial choir
LOP-Possible stupid question
John Kada:
Oops--I meant to say Howland, not Gardner/Nikumaroro...
Chris Johnson:
OK slight thread drift (should have called the thread Chris's dumb questions on navigation) but can anyone explain this to me?
--- Quote ---Recent research has indicated that on July 2, 1937, Earhart´s aircraft was not (contrary to current literature) flown over the great circle New Guinea-to-Howland.
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From Wikipedia sourced from
--- Quote ---European Journal of Navigation, Vol. 9, no. 1, 2011.
--- End quote ---
Edgard Engelman:
In fact you can download the entire artice at http://davidkbowman.com/wagner_noonan.pdf.
It was written by H.A.C.van Asten. It would be interesting to have Gary LaPook's opinion on this paper.
Chris Johnson:
--- Quote from: Edgard Engelman on August 25, 2011, 02:07:12 PM ---In fact you can download the entire artice at http://davidkbowman.com/wagner_noonan.pdf.
It was written by H.A.C.van Asten. It would be interesting to have Gary LaPook's opinion on this paper.
--- End quote ---
Thanks :)
Gary LaPook:
--- Quote from: Chris Johnson on August 25, 2011, 12:15:21 PM ---OK slight thread drift (should have called the thread Chris's dumb questions on navigation) but can anyone explain this to me?
--- Quote ---Recent research has indicated that on July 2, 1937, Earhart´s aircraft was not (contrary to current literature) flown over the great circle New Guinea-to-Howland.
--- End quote ---
From Wikipedia sourced from
--- Quote ---European Journal of Navigation, Vol. 9, no. 1, 2011.
--- End quote ---
--- End quote ---
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There is nothing magic about the great circle course. Compared to the rhumb line course a great circle course may be significantly shorter depending mainly on the latitude of the departure and the destination. Near the equator there is virtually no difference between them, the rhumb line from Lae to Howland is less than 0.2 SM longer than the great circle, the course is just 1.4 degrees different at the start and it is never more than 10 SM offset to the side of the great circle. Prior to GPS it would not have been possible for any navigator to determine whether he was flying the rhumb line or flying the great circle on this flight.
On a long flight even large deviations to the side do not appreciably lengthen the flight. On the fight from Lae to Howland he plane could have been off course 100 SM at the midpoint and this would add only 8 SM to the total distance.
gl
gl