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Technology Stocks : Trimble Navigation
TRMB 68.25+1.0%11:59 AM EST
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To: SKIP PAUL who wrote (2068)1/1/1998 5:00:00 PM
From: Yin Shih  Read Replies (2) of 3506
 
<<I meant free flight in a more generic sense where commercial airliners can fly the shortest route from point A to point B. Isn't that the reason over 1000 commercial airliners have contracted or installed Trimble/Honeywell systems? I understand that AMR was one of the first because a large number of their routes are over water and GPS navigation is much more efficient. >>

OK I understand. What you describe is normally called RNAV or area navigation, though that is starting to become an outdated term with GPS. Over land, there is a sprinkling of nav aids, called VOR's, and airliners can fly between VOR's on jet routes and reach their destination indirectly by VOR to VOR segments or they can use a computer combined with the VOR navigation radios which allows them to compute a virtual direct route by RNAV.

There are no VOR's over ocean and so long-haul airliners used to depend on some combination of HF beacons, Omega, and inertial nav. These weren't as precise as GPS and so an airliner attempting to fly the great circle route was usually slightly off course, while being able to nail the great circle route dead-on would be more fuel-efficient. But in both cases the navigational intent are the same, so GPS has not offered a new capability in over-ocean flight, just more accurate and efficient as you say.

Yin
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