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Great-circle navigation or orthodromic navigation (related to orthodromic course; from Ancient Greek ορθός (orthós) 'right angle' and δρόμος (drómos) 'path') is the practice of navigating a vessel (a ship or aircraft) along a great circle. Such routes yield the shortest distance between two points on the globe. [1]
The great circle route from the Cape of Good Hope to Australia, curving down to 60 degrees south, is 1,000 miles (1,600 km) shorter, and would also offer the strongest winds. Ship masters would therefore go as far south as they dared, weighing the risk of ice against a fast passage.
The haversine formula determines the great-circle distance between two points on a sphere given their longitudes and latitudes.Important in navigation, it is a special case of a more general formula in spherical trigonometry, the law of haversines, that relates the sides and angles of spherical triangles.
The great circle route over the North Pole is 13,000 km (7,000 nmi), or 5 + 1 ⁄ 2 hours less flying time at a typical cruising speed. Some old maps in the Mercator projection have grids composed of lines of latitude and longitude but also show rhumb lines which are oriented directly towards north, at a right angle from the north, or at some ...
Whiddon was probably son of Sir Samuel Saltonstall (d. 1640), and brother of Wye Saltonstall, who dedicated to him his ‘Picturæ Loquentes’ in 1631.Charles was the author of ‘The Navigator, shewing and explaining all the Chiefe Principles and Parts both Theorick and Practick that are contained in the famous Art of Navigation …’ (sm. 4to, 1642).
In 1594, John Davis published an 80-page pamphlet called The Seaman's Secrets which, among other things describes great circle sailing. [61] It's said that the explorer Sebastian Cabot had used great circle methods in a crossing of the North Atlantic in 1495. [61]
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Instruments used to plot a course on a nautical chart. In navigation, the course of a watercraft or aircraft is the cardinal direction in which the craft is to be steered.The course is to be distinguished from the heading, which is the direction where the watercraft's bow or the aircraft's nose is pointed.