The north and south celestial poles are the two points in the sky where Earth's axis of rotation, indefinitely extended, intersects the celestial sphere. The north and south celestial poles appear permanently directly overhead to observers at Earth's North Pole and South Pole, respectively. As Earth spins on its axis, the two celestial poles remain fixed in the sky, and all other celestial points appear to rotate around them, completing one circuit per day.
Celestial navigation, also known as astronavigation, is the practice of position fixing using stars and other celestial bodies that enables a navigator to accurately determine their actual current physical position in space or on the surface of the Earth without relying solely on estimated positional calculations, commonly known as dead reckoning. Celestial navigation is performed without using satellite navigation or other similar modern electronic or digital positioning means.
A waypoint is an intermediate point or place on a route or line of travel, a stopping point or point at which course is changed, the first use of the term tracing to 1880. In modern terms, it most often refers to coordinates which specify one's position on the globe at the end of each "leg" (stage) of an air flight or sea passage, the generation and checking of which are generally done computationally.
The de Havilland Aircraft Company Limited was a British aviation manufacturer established in late 1920 by Geoffrey de Havilland at Stag Lane Aerodrome Edgware on the outskirts of north London. Operations were later moved to Hatfield in Hertfordshire.
The basic principles of air navigation are identical to general navigation, which includes the process of planning, recording, and controlling the movement of a craft from one place to another.
Piloting or pilotage is the process of navigating on water or in the air using fixed points of reference on the sea or on land, usually with reference to a nautical chart or aeronautical chart to obtain a fix of the position of the vessel or aircraft with respect to a desired course or location. Horizontal fixes of position from known reference points may be obtained by sight or by radar. Vertical position may be obtained by depth sounder to determine depth of the water body below a vessel or by altimeter to determine an aircraft's altitude, from which its distance above the ground can be deduced. Piloting a vessel is usually practiced close to shore or on inland waterways. Pilotage of an aircraft is practiced under visual meteorological conditions for flight.
A navigator is the person on board a ship or aircraft responsible for its navigation. The navigator's primary responsibility is to be aware of ship or aircraft position at all times. Responsibilities include planning the journey, advising the ship's captain or aircraft commander of estimated timing to destinations while en route, and ensuring hazards are avoided. The navigator is in charge of maintaining the aircraft or ship's nautical charts, nautical publications, and navigational equipment, and they generally have responsibility for meteorological equipment and communications. With the advent of satellite navigation, the effort required to accurately determine one's position has decreased by orders of magnitude, so the entire field has experienced a revolutionary transition since the 1990s with traditional navigation tasks, like performing celestial navigation, being used less frequently. Using multiple independent position fix methods without solely relying on electronic systems subject to failure helps the navigator detect errors. Professional mariners are still proficient in traditional piloting and celestial navigation.
Sir Francis Charles Chichester KBE was a British businessman, pioneering aviator and solo sailor.
The true airspeed of an aircraft is the speed of the aircraft relative to the air mass through which it is flying. The true airspeed is important information for accurate navigation of an aircraft. Traditionally it is measured using an analogue TAS indicator, but as the Global Positioning System has become available for civilian use, the importance of such air-measuring instruments has decreased. Since indicated, as opposed to true, airspeed is a better indicator of margin above the stall, true airspeed is not used for controlling the aircraft; for these purposes the indicated airspeed – IAS or KIAS – is used. However, since indicated airspeed only shows true speed through the air at standard sea level pressure and temperature, a TAS meter is necessary for navigation purposes at cruising altitude in less dense air. The IAS meter reads very nearly the TAS at lower altitude and at lower speed. On jet airliners the TAS meter is usually hidden at speeds below 200 knots (370 km/h). Neither provides for accurate speed over the ground, since surface winds or winds aloft are not taken into account.
True-range multilateration is a method to determine the location of a movable vehicle or stationary point in space using multiple ranges (distances) between the vehicle/point and multiple spatially-separated known locations. Energy waves may be involved in determining range, but are not required.
Jane Gardner Batten, commonly known as Jean Batten, was a New Zealand aviator, making a number of record-breaking solo flights across the world. She is notable for completing the first solo flight from England to New Zealand in 1936.
Gipsy Moth IV is a 53 ft (16 m) ketch that Sir Francis Chichester commissioned specifically to sail single-handed around the globe, racing against the times set by the clipper ships of the 19th century.
The E6B flight computer is a form of circular slide rule used in aviation. It is an instance of an analog calculating device still being used the 21st century.
Navigational instruments are instruments used by nautical navigators and pilots as tools of their trade. The purpose of navigation is to ascertain the present position and to determine the speed, direction, etc. to arrive at the port or point of destination.
The de Havilland DH.80A Puss Moth is a British three-seater high-wing monoplane aeroplane designed and built by the de Havilland Aircraft Company between 1929 and 1933. It flew at a speed approaching 124 mph (200 km/h), making it one of the highest-performance private aircraft of its era.
Longitude by chronometer is a method, in navigation, of determining longitude using a marine chronometer, which was developed by John Harrison during the first half of the eighteenth century. It is an astronomical method of calculating the longitude at which a position line, drawn from a sight by sextant of any celestial body, crosses the observer's assumed latitude. In order to calculate the position line, the time of the sight must be known so that the celestial position i.e. the Greenwich Hour Angle and Declination, of the observed celestial body is known. All that can be derived from a single sight is a single position line, which can be achieved at any time during daylight when both the sea horizon and the sun are visible. To achieve a fix, more than one celestial body and the sea horizon must be visible. This is usually only possible at dawn and dusk.
In air navigation, the wind triangle is a graphical representation of the relationship between aircraft motion and wind. It is used extensively in dead reckoning navigation.
The de Havilland DH.60 Moth is a 1920s British two-seat touring and training aircraft that was developed into a series of aircraft by the de Havilland Aircraft Company.
Guidance, navigation and control is a branch of engineering dealing with the design of systems to control the movement of vehicles, especially, automobiles, ships, aircraft, and spacecraft. In many cases these functions can be performed by trained humans. However, because of the speed of, for example, a rocket's dynamics, human reaction time is too slow to control this movement. Therefore, systems—now almost exclusively digital electronic—are used for such control. Even in cases where humans can perform these functions, it is often the case that GNC systems provide benefits such as alleviating operator work load, smoothing turbulence, fuel savings, etc. In addition, sophisticated applications of GNC enable automatic or remote control.
Solo to Sydney is a book by Sir Francis Chichester about his solo flight in the 1920s from England to Australia in a de Havilland DH.60 Moth biplane. The book was first published in 1930 and subsequent editions have been published by Stein and Day. Chichester had relatively little flying experience when he undertook this epic voyage and the book recalls his experiences in dealing with bad weather, poor, or non-existent navigational aids and maps and his journey in general. Chichester was even more famous for his yachting achievements in a series of boats he named Gypsy Moth after his airplane.
