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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.
A diagram illustrating great-circle distance (drawn in red) between two points on a sphere, P and Q. Two antipodal points, u and v are also shown. The great-circle distance, orthodromic distance, or spherical distance is the distance between two points on a sphere, measured along the great-circle arc between them. This arc is the shortest path ...
The Great Loop is a system of waterways that encompasses the eastern portion of the United States and part of Canada. It is made up of both natural and man-made waterways, including the Atlantic and Gulf Intracoastal Waterways , the Great Lakes , the Erie Canal , and the Mississippi and Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway . [ 1 ]
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 ...
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.
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