598

FLIGHT..
(13) Look up " Nat. Hav." of (68 10' is the mysterious 6) (14) Add the two Nat. Havs. . .

JUNE I 6 , 1938.

68 itr" It i s :

Fig. 18.

(6th Mental Operation) (15) Look up the angle corresponding to a Nat. Hav. of .35729. We find it is 730 25'. This is the " Calculated Zenith Distance." All this may sound very long, but with practice and the use of forms, it can be easily done in under two minutes. In practice, the calculation would look something like this:
132 00' o 04 259 23

G.H.A. Long. L.H.A.

(2)

391

27 12 W .

-;

391 360

What is " PX " ? It is (900 Dec. of X). The Dec. T.. hav. 8.86060 31 15 of X will be given in the A ir A Imanac. Sin (00 Dec.) Lat. . . L. cos. 9-79383 32 N . is also Cosine Dec. If this is not seen, just take it on 16 L. cos. 9^)8144 38 S. trust for the time being. 0 :. ...:.' ; : . i ,'," 8.63587 (3) What is " PZ " ? It is (90 Lat. of Z) ; Z is your m 10 D.R. Latitude ; Sin (90 Lat.) is also Cosine Lat. c r , ' f;,f.,-'r*:'v.j.": (4) What is " ZPX " ? The Local Hour Angle. It is the" .04324 difference between the G.H.A. of X, and the D.R.. 3 H5 Longitude. What is " hav. 8 " ? Don't worry. We can make use (5) 35724 of it without knowing. Cak ZD = 73 25' (6) What is " ~ . " ? This means that if Lat. and Dec. are And, don't forget, this is the long method. Has " spherical of the same name, i.e., both N, you subtract the lesser trigonometry " worried us much ? In practice, all this -would from the greater in part of tlie working, T f Lat. and be done on a form. Dec. are of different name, i.e., one N and the other S, In the preceding paragraph, we were given a mean bubble you will have to add them in one part of the working, sextant altitude of 16 38' for Sirius. The Index Error given was hr0 m y take a concrete example. At 22 oi 15' G.M.T., Let us i + . We have just found the " Calc. Z.D." to be 730 25'. / 5 1 0 32'N. the mean Sextant To find the intercept : on 4th March, 1938, in D.R. \oo 12'W. <i) Set down the Sextant Alt. ... . . 160 3S' Altitude of the Star Sirius was 160 38'. Index Error 1' + . A (2) Apply Index ETTOT .. ;,*'' . . 1 -f bubble sextant was'used. (T) First find the G.H.A., from the Air Almanac. As it is a 16 39 Star, it is made up of several steps : > _ . : (3) Apply Refraction, from Table at back of Air Almanac .. hre fa) G.H.A. r , 22 . . 132 0 0 From Main Table 0 04 (b) o i m 15 . . Tf) Auxiliary Table. 0 ; : So 16 36' is the Obs. Altitude. Now (90 Alt.) = Z.D. (c) S.H.A. -; r- '<--.-.. 259 2 3 Main Table Hence 0 730 24' is the Obs. Z.D. Sum G.H.A. . . = 39T 27 (This is the 1st But 73 25' is the Calt. Z.D. So the intercept is 01' towards. 0 From Azimuth Tables. the Mental Operation) (2) We now apply Longitude, True Bearing is 5? 150 W, or 210 T. The sight was taken under favourable conditions, on the to get the L.H.A. (Subtract, because W) ground. If taken in the air, the intercept would probably have been larger, partly because of the greater difficulty in using the Long W = 0 0 12 sextant, but mostly because the D.R. position would not have I^.H.A. .. . . =391 15 (2nd Mental been so accurate. In air navigation, owing to the difficulty of Operation) keeping a very accurate D.R., and to the use of tables for which (3) In this case, 0 we can subone "assumes" a position, large intercepts are quite common tract 360 : and not necessarily inaccurate. It makes no difference to Many clever people have used their knowledge of spherical the L.H.A 360 trigonometry to devise quick ways of obtaining the Calculated Z.D. or Calculated Altitude, without going through the " long " L.H.A. logarithmic procedure. There is, luckily, no need to know =031 15 (3 r d M e n t a l anything about spherical trigonometry oneself when using the Operation : not various tables produced for this purpose ; all that is needed always necessary.) is to do as ons is told in the explanation. We have now found the included angle ZPX of the formula. The majority of the tables give Altitude, and some give the (4) Set this down .. .. 31 0 15' Azimuth as well. As the G.H.A. system is new (at least in this (5i Put Lat. below it . . ., 51 0 32' N. country) for navigational work, it will be found that the majority (6) Put Dec. below .. .. 160 38 S. {Air Almanac.) of the tables show the L.H.A. in Time, not Arc. It is, however, understood that a set of Altitude and Azimuth Tables is being (7) Add Lat. and Dec, as they prepared in Great Britain, for use with the Air Almanac ; all are of " different " names. the data will be in Arc. If they were of the Some of the best-known tables are : Ageton's Dead Reckoning " same " name, you would Altitude and Azimuth Tables ; Aquino's Altitude and Azimuth subtract .. .. 68 10' (4th Mental Tables ; Ball's Altitude or Position Line Tables ; Davis' AltOperation.) Azimuth Tables ; Dreisonstok's Navigation Tables for Mariners This is all the working before we start looking up Tables. and Aviators ; Gingrich's Aerial and Marine Navigational 0 (5) Look up " Log hav." for . . 31 15' I t is : 8.86060 Tables ; Ogura's New Altitude and Azimuth Tables ; Smart & (9) Log. Cos." . . . . 51 32 979383 Shearme's Position Line Tables ; U.S. Hydrographic Office's (10) . ' Log. Cos." . . 16 38 9.98144 Tables of Computed Altitude and Azimuth; and Weem's Line of Position Book. ill) Add up the above 3 logarithms .. 8.63587 There are many other aspects of Astronomical Air Navigation that have not even been mentioned in this short explanation ; (5th Mental but it is not really a difficult matter in theory or in practice, Operation.) i2j Look up the " Nat. Hav." corresponding thanks to the work of H.M. Nautical Almanac Office in preparing to " Log. hav." 8.63587 ,. . . It is : .04324 the Air Almanac,
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