Optimum Flight Paths

Abstract

A condensed version of a paper presented to the Centre Beige de Navigation, Brussels, 9 January 1950.The fact that the most expeditious route between two points on the Earth's surface is not necessarily a great circle is no new discovery. In the days of sailing ships courses were set to take maximum advantage of the wind; the trade winds were so called because they made the voyages of the trading ships possible. To a large extent they dictated the sea lanes and it was not until the arrival of the steamship that more direct routes across the oceans could be followed.

The Use of Pressure Pattern Flying by Trans-Canada Airline

“…For latitude ££°, the line subtends a chart length equal to Kx 10 n.m. where K is the constant in the drift formula. 1 For ££°, the average North Atlantic latitude, therefore, the component can be read off directly as D/10. A table on the template enables the adjustment for other latitudes to be made simply, and gives the scale variations in the lambert conformal upper-air chart.…”