In the very near future there is a good chance of being able to navigate around the world using one or more of the radio navigation aids currently being implemented. Navigators the world over have long dreamt of a reliable, global, all weather navigational tool and this is now within their grasp. This paper discusses some of the administrative tasks that must be accomplished to make the navigator's dream come true. There are a multitude of radio navigational aids, so many in fact that the U.S. Government has become critical of the technical and user community for the proliferation of these systems. However for global radio navigation the field is narrowed considerably, there being only five contenders.

It is difficult, somehow, to be completely convinced that the world's fuel supplies are about to dry up leaving us in a state of nature with modern technology marooned hard and fast up the proverbial creek. The end of the world itself has been prophesied at regular intervals since the beginning of time and has not yet come to pass. Again, throughout recorded history mankind, with only minor hiccups, has somehow always managed to go forward technically and never backwards. It is difficult somehow not to relax into a comfortable state of Micawberism and to reckon that something is bound to turn up in the fifty or so years we seem to have left to buoy us all up again and carry forward the kind of civilization we all take for granted. It is not surprising therefore that some basic air of unreality tends to cling around any discussion on a return to the use of wind power for propelling ships. It must be the first time ever that mankind has seriously discussed a return to an outdated and largely dead major technology.

Various surveys have been carried out in narrow waters throughout the world and provide data on the traffic volume, traffic density, velocity distributions of ships, &c. Although these surveys certainly contribute to the safety of local navigation they do not give any information on traffic movements between terminal points in a marine traffic system. There are a few papers on voyage distribution based on traffic surveys, statistical reports or questionnaires to mariners and also a few based on radar observation, including one in Osaka Bay in Japan which was carried out by the traffic research group of the Kobe University of Mercantile Marine and Nautical Technical College.

Practical inertial navigation is a quite recent achievement, only twenty-five years for serious research and development and only five for its commercial use. However, one might possibly say that a partial understanding of some of its principles is much more ancient. For example, in the Bible1 we read that God used a plumb-line to identify a particular location!

In this paper, which was presented at a meeting of the Institute in London on 26 January 1977 with Group Captain H. L. Sheppard in the Chair, Mr. Attwooll, Head of the Air Traffic Studies Division at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, discusses the application of the theory of queues to air traffic control. He shows the importance of random perturbations due to late arrival of aircraft, and how traffic schedules in an airway network can best be adjusted to minimize delays due to congestion on certain routes. Much of this study was carried out on behalf of the Civil Aviation Authority but the opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the policy either of the CAA or the Ministry of Defence

The increase in the number and tonnage of modern vessels, the large differences in their handling qualities, the dimensions of straits and ports, and consequently navigation difficulties encountered in poor visibility, have led the authorities involved to set up control centres responsible for the functions of traffic regulation and aids to navigation. Several systems ensuring these functions have been set up over the last few years or are currently under way. Using modern technology these systems meet a wide range of operational requirements and are characterized by extensive modularity, allowing system implementation in successive stages.

‘Kalman Filter Techniques’

M. J. Dove whose paper ‘Kalman Filter Techniques in Marine Integrated Navigation Systems’ was published in the January number of the Journal was described as coming from Southampton College of Technology. This should have read School of Maritime Studies, Plymouth Polytechnic.

The prime purpose of the navigation system in a combat aircraft is to determine the relative positions of aircraft and target with sufficient accuracy to enable a weapon to be released. In practice the actual system installed in the aircraft is a compromise solution, which depends on three factors, namely, the mission to be flown, the type of aircraft and the navigation phases through which the aircraft flies while performing the mission. Broadly speaking there are two types of navigation phase; these will be termed macronavigation and micronavigation. Macronavigation is concerned with the navigation of an aircraft to some pre-determined point on the Earth's surface while micronavigation is the final, highly accurate navigation phase required for weapon release. Micronavigation can be further sub-divided into static and dynamic micronavigation; static when the target and the coordinate system within which it exists are fixed, and dynamic when the target moves within a coordinate system which is defined by the attacking aircraft.

This paper, by the Assistant Chief Electro-dynamic Engineer of the British Aircraft Corporation, was originally presented at the Annual General Technical Meeting of the Guild of Air Pilots and Navigators in September 1976.

This paper discusses a programme being carried out jointly by the British Aircraft Corporation and Hawker Siddeley Aviation into the design of flight decks for civil transport aircraft scheduled to enter service in the 1980s. The flight decks of today have evolved as a result of experience gained since manned flight began; it would be foolhardy to ignore this background and in applying new technology care must be exercised in preserving, as far as possible, conventions and practices which have long been established.

To optimize the man-machine relationship different approaches are possible, the adaptation of man to the machine or of the machine to man. The first relates to training and selection, the second is generally called ‘human engineering’, now of great interest both in the naval and merchant marine context. Changing factors like the density of traffic in harbours, the harbour environment, the speed of ships and problems of manning and automation have all contributed to that interest. A ship designer is increasingly confronted with design problems where the man/machine relationship involves the operator as a controller. The desired increase in performance is achieved only if human possibilities are put to their best use.

Marine traffic engineering is a new field of navigation study with a history ranging over some fifteen years. The first traffic survey fully deserving of the name was carried out by Yamaguchi et al in 1963 in Japan; more than 30 surveys a year are nowadays being carried out with the cooperation of the Maritime Safety Agency, the Japanese Association for Preventing Sea Casualties and the Marine Traffic Engineering Research Group. The number of papers on the subject in the Journal of the Japanese Institute of Navigation has increased correspondingly. Table I gives a breakdown of theoretical studies of marine traffic engineering. A general account of Japanese activity in these fields has been published in different papers in the Journal of Navigation, London, and emphasis in this paper is based on activities since 1970.

The dissemination of navigational information is capable of several different interpretations and this paper will be concerned mainly with the display of information to the navigator of a modern merchant ship. It will not be concerned with the need for more navigational information in certain parts of the world, or the need for new sensors for critical areas of operation.

Most research papers on modern navigational systems launch into technical details without mention of the fundamental partner to the equipment—the man. Three quotations seem, however to be relevant. J. B. Carr says: ‘A frightening aspect of some of is he new problems is that they frequently defy solution by even the most skilled officers as the data available is in some cases changing with a speed and complexity that taxes the human mind beyond its limits.’

This paper was presented at a meeting of the Bristol Channel Branch of the Institute i n Cardiff on 28 April 1976.

The work and life of John Thomas Towson falls neatly within the professional group so aptly styled by the late Professor E. G. R. Taylor as the Mathematical Practitioners. Born in Devonport in 1804, Towson was educated at Stoke Classical School in that town and on leaving school followed his father's trade as a chronometer maker. When only 22 years of age Towson invented a device for banking the balance of a chronometer and his invention was communicated to the Society of Arts in 1826.

In this paper the ship is treated as an information handling and processing system with a variety of information sources, sinks and processing areas both internal and external. Information flows and is processed in a variety of patterns depending on a number of variables. These include the proximity of other ships, the shore or the sea bed, the state of the weather, whether it is day or night and whether the ship is at sea or in port.

The author wishes to thank the Science Research Council for help in funding this study and also many industries and organizations for their assistance.

Between April and about September 1977 almost all the present buoys in the southern North Sea, Dover Strait and eastern part of the English Channel will be changed and a completely new system introduced in an area much used by international shipping of all types. Why has this come about and how can the new system be recognized on charts and in the water? What are the most significant changes and where will the system be applicable? The answers to these questions are given in the Hydrographic Department's new publication NP 735, IALA Maritime Buoyage System A, Edition 1, 1976, which is now available from Admiralty chart agents. It should be studied carefully by all who go to sea or are concerned with marine operations in north-west European waters.

In 196 two papers by Captain Wylie on ‘Legal aspects of radar and collision’ were published in this Journal (18, 203, 402). Captain Wylie here reviews some of these cases, and other similar cases, in the light of the further information that might have been available on the bridge had the vessels concerned been equipped with modern automatic radar plotting equipment.

The object of this series is to examine the circumstances of a number of collisions, selected at random, to see whether the various encounters would have been likely to develop adversely had either or both ships been equipped with a fully automatic radar plotter (FARP). The argument could of course have been developed using various devised situations, but it was felt that a more convincing result would be achieved against a background of documented disasters. All the incidents chosen have been the subjects of Court Cases or Official Investigations; only in the Andrea Doria–Stockholm collision was there no conclusion, as the case was withdrawn from the New York District Court after the taking of evidence from the deck officers.

The Southampton School of Navigation and the National Maritime Institute, in association with the Royal Institution of Naval Architects, the Nautical Institute and the Royal Institute of Navigation, are organizing a Conference to be held at the Southampton School of Navigation, Warsash on 5, 6 and 7 September 1978. The theme of the Conference is the use of simulators for training and research in the shipping industry and papers are invited on the following, topics: the assessment of training needs, the design and construction of simulators, their use and effectiveness for training and research, the qualifications and training of simulator staff. Although the main emphasis will be on navigational and bridge simulators it is hoped that material on other marine simulators will be offered, e.g. engine room or cargo control simulators.

This paper by the Principal Scientific Officer of Trinity House was presented at an Institute meeting in London on 28 April 1976 with Mrs. Mary Pera in the Chair.

Mr. Reynolds describes the use of lights to convey positional and other information by the assignment of characteristics of rhythm and colour and discusses the problems of visual discrimination, the choice of light intensities and the effect of atmospheric conditions on the ranges of lights. He also describes the new buoyage system and other moves towards international agreement. A paper on the IALA system by the Hydro-grapher of the Navy appears at p. 94.

Lighting is used in various ways in maritime applications. For operations at night in vessels, in harbours or on drilling platforms general lighting is necessary; such lights may also be of value in indicating a hazard or suggesting a route to be followed but are not expressly intended for that purpose. Fixed lights in vessels are arranged in a spatial pattern and employ colour to give indications of the presence and aspect of the vessel to other vessels. Indirect lighting is also sometimes used, as in the floodlighting of lighthouse towers to reduce bird deaths by collision.

Acoustic transponders are employed in underwater navigation in situations in which a high degree of accuracy is required. Typical applications include underwater search, mapping, photography by a submersible or a towed vehicle and positioning of underwater work systems. The network of transponders, of which there may be only two or three, or which may be very extensive, is implanted by a support ship or by a submersible. The network can be located geographically by a satellite navigation equipment to an accuracy of 0·25 nm. This accuracy (or even accuracy within ± 1 mile) is sufficient to locate the network after a period of disuse. Acoustic navigation of a vehicle is accomplished relative to the network, to accuracies of the order of several feet.