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I found this course somewhat lacking in intuition building. It's also sad that we're still using trig tables (that's essentially what the nautical Alamanac is.

I found this course somewhat lacking in intuition building. It's also sad that we're still using trig tables (that's essentially what the nautical Alamanac is. It also has to be updated every year). I thought the aeronautical paper flight computer was complex ... Also, I find it hard to believe that a set of 6 books is more disaster proof (and quicker to use) than a hardened calculator for when the shit hits the fan ... FWIW, here is a nice free resource for printing your own almanac: http://sv-inua.net/the-nautical-almanac http://sv-inua.net/the-nautical-almanac

tawm 8y ago
Why is looking things up in a table sad? For the purpose of astro nav: NP303 is calculated for an epoch of 5 years (and it's only 3 books). Until its end of life, it has to be "updated" in the sense that corrections need to be applied as they are released. I don't think the point of the books has ever been disaster proofing. For the most part, books were good enough for the job before computers and still are. They're cheap, come from trusted sources (and it's easy to verify that they're legitimate), and they're easy to correct should they have errata. Windows PCs and excel spreadsheets are used in navigation all the time. Nobody's forcing navigators to use books. If they do, though, they probably have a good reason for it.
cge 8y ago
If we are to go much further on the technological side of this, I have to wonder: rather than just using a calculator rather than a table, what could be done with just a phone that could combine software with a clock, an accelerometer, and a camera?