Posted on August 4, 2020 Henry Fayol Aerospace News
When the flight industry was just starting anew, there was a role filled for which a navigator assumes responsibility. A specialized member of the crew, the navigator was tasked with organizing a flight path, from start to final destination, though which the navigator completed on a map. Easier said than done due to the requirements that designated this task to be geometrically correct calculations, the initial navigators were not always 100% accurate. However, as aircraft instruments and our knowledge on worldwide navigation advanced, so did our maps and in this day and age, aerial navigation has become a near-perfect art. Both external navigation aids and onboard systems help navigate any aircraft over thousands of moles with high accuracy. Here in this article, you will read about the radio, celestial navigation, pilotage, and the dead reckoning types of navigational instruments.
Radio navigation - Utilized in nearly all aircraft, radio navigation is a favorite among pilots as the pilots using radio navigation have the opportunity to find out from an aeronautical chart what and which radio station they should tune to in a particular area or region. With these charts, they can then tune their radio navigation to a signal from this station. A needle on the navigation piece of machinery can inform the pilot where the plane is flying and whether the plane is keeping on course or not.
Pilotage - One of the more common types of navigation, the pilotage is used to keep on course by way landmarks and having each landmark pinpoint a flight's progression down or up a map. Prior to takeoff, the pilot organizes a course of action and designs a flight plan. They start by marking a line on an aeronautical map to signal the desired flight course and note various landmarks such as buildings, roads, rivers, bridges, etc. As the aircraft travels over each of the landmarks, the pilot then checks them off on the chart or map. If the aircraft does not fly directly over the landmark, this is how the pilot will know that they have missed their landmark and must now correct their current course.
Dead Reckoning- Dead reckoning, despite its morbid name, simply refers to a polit that is navigating the aircraft completely by means of computations that is based on time, airspeed, distance, and direction. The items based on these variables, when adjusted by wind speed and velocity, can relay direction and ground speed to the pilot and to the ground crew as well. The direction which is being anticipated will often take the aircraft along its pre-arranged course and the ground speed establishes or produces the hour to arrive at each checkpoint and the destination with respect to each other. Because of frequently changing wind, the dead reckoning method is not always a successful method of navigation and was primarily utilized in the early era of flight navigation.
Celestial navigation and navigation Across Oceans - Based on navigational reference to heavenly bodies like Sun, Moon, planets, stars etc. - Navigation through use of data broadcast by a satellite-based transmitter. As for oceans, there are special methods for navigating aircraft across oceans. Three commonly used methods are the Inertial Navigation System, the long range navigation, and the global positioning system.
There’s lots to learn about air navigation and aircraft instruments including inertial navigation system, GPS navigation system, satellite navigator, radio aids, and more. For details on these parts and acquiring them, check in with our team!
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