Navigati n NEWS - The Natural Navigator · decision originated with the US Volpe Report of 2001 which identified the vulnerability of GPS to interference, spoofing and solar storms

Navigati nMARCH/APRIL 2008

NEWS

Double JeopardyRIN 08: Your Conference Guide

Equipping An Expedition

The magazine of the Royal Institute of Navigation

Double JeopardyTristan Gooley explains the years ofpreparation behind his successful doublecrossing of the Atlantic.

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Secrets Of The NileJohn Kemp learns the importance ofinstinct and experience when navigatingone of history’s great rivers.

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Mailbox24

RIN Focus27What’s On30

Affiliate Profile25

EDITORIAL

Managing EditorGp Capt DW Broughton MBEe-mail: [email protected]

EditorTony FylerTel: +44 (0)20 7591 3133e-mail: [email protected]

MembershipDetails of Membership of the RIN may be obtained by contacting theRIN office at the address below.Royal Institute of Navigation1 Kensington GoreLondon SW7 2ATTel: +44(0) 20 7591 3130Fax: +44(0) 20 7591 3131e-mail: [email protected] site: http://www.rin.org.uk

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Art EditorsIan Swain and Dave Blake

Advertising SalesRod Sessions Mercator Media LtdThe Old Mill, Lower QuayFareham, Hampshire PO16 0RA UKTel: +44 (0)1329 825335Fax: +44 (0)1329 825330e-mail: [email protected]

Navigation News is published bi-monthly by Mercator Media Limited on behalf of the Royal Institute of Navigation.

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Any facts stated or opinions expressed inthis magazine are the sole responsibility ofthe contributor. Neither the Royal Instituteof Navigation, the Editor nor the Publisherscan be held responsible for any injury orloss sustained in reliance thereon.

© RIN 2008ISSN 0268 6317

Features

Regulars

FRONT COVER

The front cover of this issue shows the Atlantic Ocean,from the deck of Tristan Gooley’s boat, Golden Eye.

InternationalNews, In Brief, Company News

4News

The prudent navigatorOur Institute is a meeting place for exchanging views.Rarely does it make a policy statement. But in 2004Council, recognising that satellite navigation wasvulnerable to loss of service, strongly recommendedmaintaining and updating the terrestrial Loran C systemas a backup. It proposed this policy as part of theEuropean Radionavigation Plan, then in draft form. Hasthis happened? Well, yes and no!

The last Navigation News reported that the UK andIreland had launched a station to transmit EnhancedLoran (eLoran), the new high-performance replacementfor Loran C. Then, the US Department of HomelandSecurity announced that the US had abandoned itsformer GPS-only policy and will implement an eLoranpositioning, navigation and timing back-up to GPS. Thisdecision originated with the US Volpe Report of 2001which identified the vulnerability of GPS to interference,spoofing and solar storms. It was followed by intensetechnical studies on land, sea and air, then a worldwidepolicy consultation, and finally a high-level IndependentAssessment led by Professor Bradford Parkinson, the‘father of GPS.’

And Europe, with its Radionavigation Plan?Understandably, our European eyes are on Galileo, ourown exciting foray into satellite navigation. The RIN hasjust hosted part of the UK’s intense Galileo debate. Butsadly, concentration on Galileo has diverted Brussels’resources and attention from all other navigation matters.There’s a Galileo planning blight! The 2004 EuropeanRadionavigation Plan draft lies in a drawer in the EC.There are no US-style vulnerability studies here, despiteVolpe’s warning that Galileo shares much GPSvulnerability. Recent losses of GPS service to solar flaresand interference are ignored.

So US, UK, and now Chinese and Russian policies allpoint to GNSS supported by an eLoran backup – just whatthe RIN recommended! Europe risks missing out on itspotentially unbeatable Galileo-GPS-eLoran combination.

David Last, RIN President

RIN 08: YourConference GuideIf you read this at RIN 08, don’t missthese highlights of the event. If you didn’tattend, this is what you’ve missed.

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NEWS

Navigare Necesse Est

Comment

Navigation

Equipping An ExpeditionSteve Cater spent Christmas 2007 in thedesert. Deliberately. Here he explains how toprovision an extended land expedition so asto avoid ending up dead, or lost, or both.

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GPS In Light AircraftVisual Navigation Part OneDavid Cockburn begins an investigationinto the merging of new technology andtraditional technique.

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4 www.rin.org.uk NAVIGATION NEWS MARCH/APRIL 2008

INTERNATIONAL BRIEFING

Mobiles On Planes in EU ClearedThe use of mobiles on planes flying inEuropean airspace has been givenapproval by UK regulator Ofcom. It hasissued plans that will allow airlines to offermobile services on UK-registered aircraft.

The decision means that mobilescould be used once a plane has reachedan altitude of 3,000m or more. Thedecision to offer the services now falls toindividual airlines. However, there areother regulatory hurdles to overcomebefore the technology is considered tobe fully approved. The European AviationSafety Agency needs to approve anyhardware that would be installed inaircraft to ensure that it did not interferewith other flight systems.

The Civil Aviation Authority has saidthat many airlines would be interested inoffering the mobile option, but added thatnone had formally approached it as yet.

Conditional GalileoSupport From DfTThe UK Department for Transport hasresponded to the Select Committee onTransport's scathing report on Galileopublished on 12 November 2007 (seeprevious news). The very long response concludes:• The Government notes the

Committee's conclusions but webelieve…that the clear direct benefitsto the UK, together with the widerpotential benefits to the UK andEuropean economies from the Galileosystem operating alongside GPS, justifythe UK's continuing support for theproject.

• This will be subject to ensuring that theproject is constrained within theagreed budget…that risks can beeffectively managed…and that there isan open, competitive procurementarchitecture with parallel multi-sourceprocurement.

The full response can be downloadedat http://www.publications.parliament.uk

NewsinBriefGalileo Seminars Pit Facts Against FiguresThe European version of GPS continues toexercise the minds of navigators, commercialplayers and politicians. The RIN held alandmark seminar at its London headquarterson 12 February to hear views from all sides ofthe debate.

In particular, the RIN was honoured tohave Mrs Gwyneth Dunwoody of the Houseof Commons Transport Select Committee,which late last year published a frankassessment of the value of Galileo, along forthe day. She described Galileo as having been‘bowling along quite happily without theHouse of Commons taking too much of anactive interest in it.’ While acknowledging thatthe project would probably be ‘quite useful,’she nevertheless underlined the Committee’sconcerns over escalating costs, and describedthe Committee’s analysis of current estimatesfor the project. ‘We were rather boring,’ sheadmitted. ‘We said that comprehensive,rigorous and realistic information was in shortsupply. That’s House of Commons words for“God, what’s going on here?!” The !2.37bnfigure from Europe contains £298 for“contingencies.” Nevertheless, we wereconcerned, and the government agreed withus. Now obviously if you have an inventionwhich is going to be important to the way youare developing your transport infrastructure,you’re not only going to want to support it,you’re going to want to have a detailedargument to put before the people who haveto vote the money for it. And we said thatwhile there was no doubt the Galileo projectcould provide a wide array of benefits, directand indirect, the benefit projections of theEuropean Commission appeared fanciful, withthe supporting evidence rarely amounting tomore than the most basic collection of data –and that was after we’d spent a considerableamount of time being spent looking at it. Wealso said that the impact of the five year delayhadn’t been taken into consideration, and thateven if there were no further delays, andGalileo was completed in 2013, the marketcontext was undoubtedly going to be verydifferent from that which had been originallyenvisaged, and it would have to operate in acompletely different sphere. We said theproject was at a crossroads – you either hadto consider its scope, or you had to considerdropping it altogether.’

Richard Peckham, Vice-Chair of UKSpacesaid he was saddened by the fact that thedebate about why Galileo was still going on inthe UK, whereas in Europe, the view was thatit was going to happen, and the focus ofdebate was now how to get the most out ofthe project. He also dismissed the idea thatGalileo was largely defensible on ‘political’grounds, and went on to outline what he

called strong economic and prudent riskmanagement arguments for developing theconstellation.

To hear all the presentations from theGalileo: To Be Or Not To Be seminar, simply logon to the Nav Channel via the link on thefront page of the RIN website,www.rin.org.uk.

Richard Peckham was to outline thereasons that make Galileo viable in evengreater detail at another RIN event on thesubject on 28 February at the OrdnanceSurvey in Southampton. ‘Galileo, as it’scurrently proposed, is superior to GPS –there should be no argument about that, it’s afact,’ he told the crowd. ‘It’s also not acompetitor to GPS. The one thing I get verytired of is the argument that “nobody’s askingfor Galileo.” Nobody was asking for GPSeither except the military, but the people whouse it today are very keen to have it.’

GLONASSStrides AheadWhile the Galileo satellite network is aimingto get its second preliminary satellitelaunched, new amendments to the Russianfederal space programme should mean that2008 sees 13 GLONASS satellites fired intoorbit, rather than the six that were previouslyplanned for this year. This would bring thenumber of satellites in the Russianconstellation to 24 by the end of this year –with an extra six planned for deployment in2009 bringing the complete system to 30,including in-orbit ‘spares’ in case of satellitemalfunction. Thirty satellites has long beendescribed as Galileo’s optimal composition,but the European project is not destined tobe completed until at least 2013, and may notbe fully operational for some years after that.

MARCH/APRIL 2008 NAVIGATION NEWS www.rin.org.uk 5

INTERNATIONAL BRIEFING NewsinBrief

Lord Nelson Wants A WomanThe Jubilee Sailing Trust (JST) is on thehunt for an adventurous female engineerwho wants to secure their place inhistory as a part of the first all femalecrew to compete aboard a Class A tallship in a race leg of the STI Tall ShipsRaces 2008.

This groundbreaking voyage, which isthe first of two race legs, starts off fromLiverpool, UK and finishes in Måløy,Norway. It is a joint venture between theJubilee Sailing Trust and Girlguiding UK.

The ship being used for this superbchallenge is STS Lord Nelson, one ofonly two tall ships in the world purposedesigned and built to enable a crew ofmixed physical abilities aged 16 and overto sail side by side as equals. If you feelyou fit the bill, or know someone whomight, contact Andy Spark, OperationsManager at the Jubilee Sailing Trust, on023 8044 3113 or [email protected]

GIOVE-B Goes ToKazakhstanHaving spent so long in a lonely orbit,GIOVE-A, the first Galileo in-orbitvalidation satellite, is close to gettingsome company. GIOVE-B has beendelivered to a clean room at theBaikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Itis now undergoing a series of checks bystaff from the European Space Agencyand the industrial consortium thatdeveloped it, prior to being mated withthe Fregat upper stage of the launcher.Barring unforeseen delays, GIOVE-B isdue to be launched into orbit on 26/27April. Watch this space.

As Navigation News went to press, the UnitedKingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO) wasset to unveil a revolutionary new electroniccharting service to the world’s commercialshipping fleet.

The UKHO will launch its new AdmiraltyVector Chart Service (AVCS) at dedicatedlaunch events in Singapore on Thursday, 3April and London on Monday, 7 April.

AVCS integrates official electronicnavigational charts (ENCs) from nationalhydrographic offices across the globe toprovide a comprehensive world series for theinternational mariner.

Official ENCs are digital vector chartsproduced to the International HydrographicOrganisations (IHB) Standards, and are onlyissued by, or on behalf of, a nationalhydrographic office.

UK National Hydrographer Rear AdmiralIan Moncrieff stressed that AVCS containsonly data that is fully compliant with safety oflife at sea (SOLAS) carriage requirements foruse within electronic chart display and

UKHO Launches New Chart Service

We all know that sinking feeling of flattenedanticipation when, minutes away from landingat our destination airport, the pilot says wewill have to circle for another half an hour. Butimagine if your pilot didn’t actually know yourdestination airport existed?

That was the situation in which 233passengers onboard a KLM flight foundthemselves in March. The plane, which hadflown all the way from Amsterdam to India,was diverted at Hyderabad because the pilotclaimed he had no knowledge of the brandnew Rajiv Gandhi International airport thatgraces the city. He diverted the plane to NewDelhi, where it was refused permission toland, meaning that the Hyderabad passengersdisembarked two hours later at Mumbai – allin all, a 1,200 mile detour.

information systems (ECDIS). He said: ‘The UKHO has never been

content to stand still and has continued toinnovate throughout the past 200 years tomeet the changing needs of the mariner.

‘AVCS is the next phase in terms ofservice delivery, and we will use all of ourspecialisms and expertise to continue tosupport safety of life at sea as we enter thedigital era with our new product.’

In the pilot’s defence, the flight was alwaysbound for Hyderabad, and the confusionarose just hours after Rajiv GandhiInternational became operational. Onattempting to fly into the old Hyderabadairport, he was advised by air traffic controlthat it had been closed, and so the detourfrom Hell began. However, airport officials saythat all airlines were made aware that RajivGandhi International would be operationalfrom 14 March, and by the time the KLMflight arrived, there were other flights takingoff and landing at the new airport.

As a matter of record for aviators – thereis now a fully functioning airport in theHyderabad suburb of Shamshabad, called RajivGandhi International. If you hit Mumbai, you’vegone too far.

Bees Tagged For ResearchResearchers at Queen Mary University, University ofLondon are using RFID tags to try to discover howbumblebees navigate to and from familiar sites.

Recent research has revealed that bees areable to recognise individual human faces, andthe QMUL team is looking at how beesdifferentiate between different colours, scents,and rewards in flowers, and recall and processthis information for future foraging trips, aswell as how they navigate to all the ‘best’flowers and still find their way back totheir home nests in a straight line.

I See No Airports says KLM Pilot


Logica…Just LogicaRIN Corporate Member LogicaCMG hasfollowed in the RIN’s footsteps andrebranded its image. In particular, theLogicaCMG brand, along with the Edinfor,Unilog and WM-data brands, have nowbeen consolidated under one simplename. LogicaCMG is now just Logica.

CEO Andy Green said the Logicaname would now stand for ‘high quality,innovative services supplied bycommitted local teams and supported bybest-in-class global expertise and deliveryacross the world.’

‘Our local brands such as Edinfor,Unilog and WM-data have excellent track records in their local markets. We are committed to providing ourcustomers with excellent local services,whilst at the same time combining thiswith the innovative capabilities andexpertise of a 39,000 strong globalorganisation,’ he added.

UK Space StrategyNew proposals for the UK's futureinvolvement in international spaceactivities were published on 14 Februaryin the 'UK Civil Space Strategy: 2008 -2012 and beyond.'

With the space sector currentlycontributing around £7 billion to the UKeconomy, the Science and InnovationMinister announced how the UK wouldcontinue to be 'at the forefront' of thisexpanding sector. This will include:• Continued UK involvement in Earth

observation, space science andtelecoms developments

• Establishing an international spacefacility at Harwell, Oxfordshire, whichwill focus on climate change, roboticspace exploration and applications

• Closer involvement in internationalinitiatives on the future shape of space exploration to the Moon, Mars and beyond

• Setting up a National Space TechnologyProgramme to support thedevelopment of new, innovativetechnologies and services.

Full copies of the strategy can bedownloaded from the British NationalSpace Centre website, www.bnsc.gov.uk

INTERNATIONAL BRIEFINGNewsinBriefAfter much controversy and amidenvironmental protest, Terminal 5 at HeathrowAirport was opened by Her Majesty TheQueen on March 14th. The £4.3 bn terminal isset to offer extra passenger capacity withoutactually increasing the number of flights out ofthe world’s busiest international airport. Itspurpose will be to simplify and speed upcheck-in for existing flights.

Her Majesty described the new terminalbuilding as ‘bright, airy, clean and efficient’ –perhaps overlooking the fact that at the launchit was filled with only 800 invited guests, ratherthan hordes of harassed holidaymakers whoseluggage is still in Marrakech. But even before itwas opened, Terminal 5 was causingcontroversy. Built on the site of a formersewage works on the western end of theexisting airport, it has long been seen as ananti-environment development – itsconstruction involved diverting two rivers and

Heathrow – Five Terminals, Less Waiting?

erecting what is thought to be the UK’s largestfree-standing building. Campaigning groups likeFriends of the Earth claimed that if thegovernment was serious about climate change,Terminal 5 would mark the end of airportexpansion in the UK – something that seemsunlikely in the long-term.

In a nod to those who believe that chaosexpands to fill the space provided, when theterminal was officially opened to the public on26 March, it rapidly filled with irate travellers,as more than 30 flights were cancelled andthe new baggage handling facilities weresuspended, shutting down passenger check-inand leading to days of misery and confusion.

There are already plans to expandTerminal 5, with a second phase ofdevelopment set to open in 2010.

Branching Out – UpdateFollowing the call in the September/Octoberissue of Navigation News for members to getinvolved in expanding the areas where theRIN could operate, there has been significantprogress and development with theInstitute’s branch network and its SpecialInterest Groups. Firstly – a slightrepositioning has taken place, so that theSatellite Navigation Users’ Group will nowdeal with all navigation issues relating tospace; it was felt that as satellite navigationtechnology has an impact on land, air and seausers, they could each best address therelevant satellite navigation issues in theirspheres, whereas there were areas of spacenavigation that would be better served by aSIG dealing exclusively with space matters.So RIP SNUG, and arise the RIN SpaceSpecial Interest Group.

In a similar vein of reaching new areas ofthe navigation world, it was felt that as theInstitute has been a long-time supporter ofeLORAN as a key navigation infrastructureand the rest of the world appears to becatching up, the time was right to launch an

eLORAN Special Interest Group. In this, theInstitute has been almost ridiculouslyfortunate, gaining the support of Dr SallyBasker, who is an eminent voice on eLORANat the General Lighthouse Authorities, andwho will chair the SIG. If you’re a RINMember and you’d like to join her on thisSIG, contact membership Secretary ColinHatton on 020 7591 3130 or by email [email protected].

Initial outreach meetings will be taking place soon in the Liverpool andCranwell areas, with a view to setting upbrand new Branches in the Northwest and East Midlands areas. For moreinformation or to attend either of these meetings, contact Colin Hatton.What is more, the West Country Branch,previously active but recently having lain fallow, is ripe for resurrection. We willbe exploring the viability of re-establishingthe West Country Branch in the nearfuture, and once again, if you’d like to be apart of that Branch, contact Colin Hattonfor more details.


INTERNATIONAL BRIEFING NewsinBrief

IMarEST – New Journal,New PresidentThe Institute of Marine Engineering,Science and Technology has launched anew peer-reviewed Journal – the Journalof Operational Oceanography.Combining a broad range of disciplinesfrom pure physics and geology tosatellite technology and systemsintegration, it may be of interest to manyRIN members. Contact IMarEST directfor further information.

IMarEST also made history at its AGMon 13 March, when it appointed ProfessorYoo Sang Choo as its 106th President.The first IMarEST member from the FarEast to take on this prestigious role, theProfessor takes over the reins of officefrom Dr David Wynford Williams, theNational Hydrographer 2001-2006.Michael Everard has been appointedPresident-Elect.

Expensive BridgeworkDown To Satnavs?What happens when the unstoppableforce meets the immovable object? Well,according to Network Rail, damage,delays and a costly repair job. The ownerof Britain’s rail infrastructure has saidthat millions of poundsworth of damageis being done to the UK’s railway bridgesevery year – by lorry drivers followingtheir satnavs. It claims 2,000 bridges arehit every year by lorries travelling oninappropriate roads, adding that thedisruption costs the rail industry £10m ayear and causes 5,000 hours of delays.Network Rail is appealing to drivers topay attention to road signs warning themof hazards ahead.

Sailors frequently live or die by the weather.Certainly they are often called to plot theirnavigations by its dictates. But now ground-breaking research at the University ofAberdeen could give them a new heads-up. Ifyou want to know when a big storm iscoming…watch the sharks.

Marine biology student Lauren Smith hasbeen using Aberdeen’s National HyperbaricCentre to test the theory that sharks headfor deeper water in anticipation of a bigstorm, and that they use their vestibularsystem to tell when such storms are coming.

That a shark’s vestibular system containshair cells that allow it to sense changes inpressure was established by Dr Peter FraserFRIN, Lauren's supervisor at the University ofAberdeen. (To hear Peter speak directly abouthis work on depth as a factor in aquaticnavigation, either catch him at RIN 08 or readthe feature on page XX).

Lauren's research is thought to be the firstof its kind to attempt to test the pressuretheory. As well as using the Aberdeen facility,she studied shark behaviour in the wild at theBimini Biological Field Station in the Bahamas.

Her work at Bimini enabled her to

‘…And Here’s Jaws With The Weather…’

observe shark behaviour by placing datalogging tags to record pressure andtemperature on juvenile lemon sharks, whilealso tracking them using acoustic tags andGPS technology. This let her determine theexact movements of the juveniles, the firsttime hydrostatic pressure sensing of sharks insitu has been approached in this way.

Lauren remains cautious about the impactof her research. ‘Who can say if this couldlead to sharks predicting weather fronts,there's so much more we need tounderstand. But it certainly opens the way tomore research,’ she said.

The RIN’s TopNav competition has alwaysdrawn the best and most competitive generalaviators into combat to win glory bynavigating, clue by clue, around a course, withthe fastest and most accurate teams winning

TopNav, Son Of TopNav xxxxxxxtrophies, respect and the envy of all eyes.Traditionally, White Waltham Aerodrome has been the home of TopNav, and in this, its30th year, it will once more see the battle forTopNav recognition take place, this time on12 July. But turning 30 is enough to make eventhe wildest souls consider their legacy, andTopNav is no exception. Which is why theRIN is delighted to announce that this year,there will also be a TopNav Northcompetition, held at Sherburn in Elmett,Yorkshire on 24 May. Watch the RIN website,www.rin.org.uk for more details, or to applyfor either incarnation of TopNav, contactEvents Manager Kathy Hossain on 020 75913135 or at [email protected].

Fancy a Spell on Council?Council is the governing body of theInstitute, and its 16 members are also theCharity's Trustees. The normal term of officeis three years and we try to rotate around athird of its members each year. So if you areinterested in contributing to the policies andwellbeing of the Institute, why not putyourself forward for Council membership?

Any Fellow, Associate Fellow or Membermay apply and returning Council memberswould be welcome. The commitment is justfour meetings per year, although Council

members are encouraged to support theInstitute's main Committees – indeedCouncil members generally sit on at leastone of the committees of the Institute inaddition to their Council duties. Travelexpenses are paid.

To apply, you need to be supported byone other Fellow, Associate Fellow orMember, and submit a CV of about 150words to the Director by post or email([email protected]). Applications must bereceived by 27 April.


Some ideas come, dance around a bit,and then pass by without lingering ortaking root. Others creep up, seize you

and don’t let go until they have taken overyour life. My ambition to fly solo and then sailsingle-handed across the Atlantic was one ofthose unshakeable ideas.

Never Think While AtPaddington StationI remember the moment it first got hold ofme. I was eating a sandwich at Paddingtontrain station at the time, roughly seven yearsago, when I decided to do a bit of a mentalassessment of my interests and ambitions. Itwent something like this:

‘My hobbies are too disparate, there is nocommon theme there. I love mountains andtrekking. I love sailing, but am not veryexperienced at it. I love flying but haven’t reallygot to the point where I can do anything veryexciting in an aircraft yet. None of these thingshave anything in common, they are justrandom leisure pursuits. No, wait a minute…’

And there, on Paddington station, it hit me.There was a common theme - navigation.Navigation united these interests very neatly.‘I’m a navigator,’ I thought. It was right undermy nose all along and I very nearly didn’t see it.

‘I know what,’ I thought. ‘Why don’t Ipursue this navigation thing? Why don’t I setmyself a goal that ensures that I get reallyquite good at it? How about I fly solo and sailsingle-handed across the Atlantic? Thatshould pretty much do it.’

Double JeopardyOn 1st January 2008 RIN member Tristan Gooley became the first European to have both flown solo andsailed single-handed across the Atlantic. Since the tragic death of legendary navigator Steve Fossett, Tristan isthe only living person to have done the Double. Here he explains how he went from being a man with somenavigational hobbies to being a man who was ready to tackle the Atlantic Double.

About a year later I joined the RoyalInstitute of Navigation, and six years after thatI arrived in Marigot Bay, St Lucia having donethe Double. It was tiring, expensive, frustating,risky, antisocial, family-unfriendly and manyother things, the enumeration of which wouldrequire a thesaurus of negative adjectives, butit was also quite a journey. One I live witheach day now and will never forget.

Power To The PPLAll disciplines have their learning curves andeach of them have steep parts and flatterareas, although it is the steep parts that tendto stick out in the memory. Getting thePrivate Pilots Licence was definitely one ofthe steep bits. I make no apologies for statingthe obvious there, because I hope it will act asinspiration to anyone finding the first part ofthe piloting experience quite tough. I had myfirst trial lesson when I was 14 and it tookanother ten years to get the PPL. Gettingthere was, like so much else in life, moreabout perseverance than skill. I quickly lostcount of the number of weekend days whereI turned down invitations from friends orfamily to do something carefree and fun, onlyto find myself drinking another cup of teaat White Waltham, watching lowclouds scudding by outside.Another very valuablelesson for me

came during the final run in to getting mylicence: people are as critical to flight asaircraft. Bruce Hutton was the last of manyinstructors I had before finally getting thelicence and he can take a lot of credit forkeeping the momentum up until the licencewas in my hand. My examiner for the finalflight test was the late Freddie Stringer, whohad an extremely long and impressive aviationCV and who must have notched up a lotmore cups of tea than I’ll ever manage at theWest London Aero Club.

The nature of aviation is that a lot of peopleworking in private flying are transitory; this isnot something to be lamented, it is just a fact oflife. The pay is modest at best, but the quid proquo is that frozen ATPL pilots can get a roofover their head and build a few hours until a‘proper job’ comes along. Most of theseinstructors are very good, but it is not theirchosen vocation to instruct. I felt privileged tohave flown with two people who seemingly didnot want to be anywhere else in the world.

‘Affirmative’ ActionThere are many memorable flights early onfor all pilots. Few forget the first solo, or


Double Jeopardy

qualifying cross-country flight and another bigone for memories is the first flight with apassenger as a qualified pilot. These are allsafely etched in my memory, but the fondestearly memory I have came a few weeks afterall of those. It was proposing to my thengirlfriend, Sophie, as we waved to her parentsand grandmother in her parents’ garden nearHungerford from the cockpit of a club PA28.After repeating the question in my best RTvoice, the answer came back and to my reliefit was ‘Affirmative.’ My flight planning for thatday had not included trying to make one ofmy earliest landings as a pilot-in-commandwith my vision seriously impaired by tears ofhappiness. It was a decent enough landing onthe huge grass runway at White Waltham andwe clambered out onto the Warrior’s wingwhere I put the ring on Sophie’s finger. Theirony is not lost on me, all these years later,that my love of aviation has at times madebeing married to me inconvenient for Sophieto say the least.

Although flying took hold of me in a bigway before sailing did, my first real moment ofnavigation exhilaration came at a very youngage in a very small boat. I was ten and on afamily summer holiday in Bembridge on theIsle of Wight. My mum had booked me intoan RYA Dinghy course, which I tried to resistout of shyness at first. On the last day of acourse that was as fun as any I can rememberto this day, the instructor said, ‘Where do youwant to go?’ A simple enough question, but amore of an incendiary device to a ten-year-old who was bored of following teachers,parents and others around all day. If I had topick one moment that sowed the seed of myfascination for navigation that would certainlybe it. To this day I am much more interestedin the idea of being able to find my way andgo places than just ‘have fun’. Aerobatics andyacht racing are the way thousands like tospend their weekends, but for me it hasalways been more exciting to think, ‘I amhere. I will get there. This is how I will do it.’

Lost, Two YompersThe most accessible form of navigation camenext. I was delighted to discover that with apair of boots, some stubbornness and a littlepersuasion a serious amount of navigating canbe done. Summer camping holidays to theBrecon Beacons and the Lake District as ateenager were followed by more serious‘yomps’. Failing to persuade any of my equallyhedonistic university friends to accompanyme, I bought a ticket to Tanzania, hired a guideand porter (which was both sensible andcompulsory for employment reasons) andfound myself at the summit of Kilimanjarofour days later. This restored some mountainconfidence which had taken a bit of a knock ayear earlier when I led my best friend, Sam,

close to death on Gunung Rinjani, an activevolcano and the second highest mountain inIndonesia. Fleeing from hypothermia (poor kitand planning) a hundred feet or so from thesummit we got lost and separated from ourtent (poor kit, planning and navigating). Wespent one day with no water and two dayswith no food (poor kit, planning, navigatingand leadership). At our lowest point wethrew off our rucksacks hoping that a finalrun with no weight would bring survival.Crazy really, but priceless stuff from aneducational point of view. The very samefriend and I found ourselves between jobs atthe same time when we were 24. Needingsome thinking time to work out our nextcalamitous career move and feeling a bitrestless, we put on our boots again andwalked from Glasgow to London.

There was some mucking about in boatson holidays in my teens and early twenties,but nothing that could be described asmastery of the nautical art. My wife and Iwent on holiday to Thailand shortly after we

got married and being restless souls, signed upfor another RYA course. I did the Dayskipperand she took the Competent Crew course. Itwas great fun, but my skippering abilities werenothing to be too proud of at the end of it. Itwasn’t until a couple of years later that thedecision to go for the Double meant that Ihad to find a way to ratchet up my skills andexperience considerably. After anotherpleading conversation with Sophie, she saidthat if I really was set on it she wouldn’t standin my way if I wanted to sign up to a 17 weekprofessional skipper training course.

Going ProfessionalJanuary to May in the English Channel andbeyond on the small yachts of the BritishOffshore Sailing School was fun at times,tough at others and a clear turning point inmy belief in my abilities. Cruel though itsounds, there is nothing like watching peopledrop like flies around you in cold high seas tomake you realise that maybe, just maybe, youhave found your metier. Soon after the courseI got my first paid sailing job, helping deliver asuperyacht from Norway to Southampton.

Finding the time to reach the levels ofcompetence that I sought was as great achallenge as some of the training itself. Itended to work for a year and then pack in anintensive fortnight or work for three or moreyears and then take a sabbatical. During onesuch sabbatical I fought on two fronts to takemyself from Dayskipper to Yachtmaster andPPL to Multi-Engine Instrument Rated pilot.

A word should be said about the CAAInstrument Rating, but I will not reinvent thewheel here. In this April’s issue of Flyermagazine it is described thus:

‘The IR is almost certainly the mostexacting flight test that you will everundertake. It has the reputation of beingrather like the driving test only 100 timesmore demanding.’


Double Jeopardy

It is scary. The CAA makes no distinctionbetween someone who will shortly be at thecontrols of a large jet with a hundredpassengers onboard coming into Heathrowand a rather enthusiastic amateur with ideasabove his station. Why should they? Theywere qualifying me to share the same airspaceafter all and small planes will bring big onesdown fast enough if the pilot makes a seriousmistake. The 1986 Aeromexico tragedy, whena Piper Cherokee and DC9 collided, istestament to this if ever there was any doubt.

Studies for the Ocean Yachtmasterqualification followed whilst working and thensailing as Mate aboard a crewed yacht during atransatlantic voyage was the next holiday a yearlater. More valuable experience on this crossingincluded witnessing a crewmember lose nearlyall the skin on both hands as he lost a fight witha halyard and suffered horrific rope burns.

The Sharp EndQualifications are one thing, the sharp end isanother. In a previous article for NavigationNews I commented on the technicalcompetence but relative inexperience of afreshly IR-rated pilot. Experience was badlyneeded, but time was more at a premium in2004 than ever before. I had recently becomea father and work pressures were growingsteadily. The most time I managed tonegotiate from family and work was afortnight that year and so I was absolutelyhell-bent on packing in as much realexperience as possible. I wrote a full accountof the ensuing expedition by sea, air and landfrom London to the summit of North Africafor this magazine. (www.toubkalodyssey.info).

My ability to cram navigational experienceinto the most unlikely situations knew nobounds. My long-suffering wife even managed

to feign excitement when, during a preciousand hens-tooth-rare 9 day break from thekids (Thank you mother and father-in-law!), Iannounced that I thought it would be fun tocharter a yacht and sail back to ourhoneymoon resort in Krabi from Phuket inThailand. For weeks before we left I used theword ‘romantic’ in every sentence ofconversation with Soph as I excitedly boughtcharts online so that I could flick my dividersacross them. I was the proverbial kid in acandy store. It was, thank God, the bestholiday we have ever had. My dividers wereconfiscated by security at Bangkok airport onthe way home, but it was a small price to pay.

There were occasions when getting into aboat or aircraft of any description on holidaywould have been impossible. At times like this,lateral thinking is required if navigation is notto be overlooked entirely. In 2003 we were

on holiday in Borneo, ostensibly for theorangutans. It was a case of the glove being onthe other foot there, because before I couldcome up with a scheme of my own, Sophsuggested that we take a couple of days outto climb Mt Kinabalu, at 13,435ft the fourthtallest mountain in South East Asia. We bothenjoyed it, although she was much betterduring the descent than I was (I abhorrelentless descents).

By 2005 my annual ‘navigational leave’ wasdown to 8 days and I was delighted when anon-flying friend who is soon to become apilot agreed on the scheme to beat all others.In a tiny PA28 we would take off from WestLondon Aero Club on Saturday 18th June, flynorth until we got to Kiruna in Sweden andinside the Arctic Circle, check out themidnight sun and be back in time for tea onthe following Saturday. It was another greatholiday (www.arcticpostcard.com), and vitalexperience of tough IMC conditions and longhops over water with only one engine.

Brains And Boats And PlanesAlthough each year that passed my skills andexperience were building to the necessarylevels, in 2006 there were still two very bigparts of the jigsaw missing if I was going to sailand fly the Atlantic. The first was a boat andthe second was an aeroplane. Chartering foreither crossing was an unrealistic proposal, noindividual or company is going to want to seetheir kit missing for such long periods or torisk it on such ventures.

There was nothing else for it: I bought aContessa 32 called Golden Eye. She is abeautiful boat and I offset concerns about thecost with the knowledge that my two sonswill hopefully get their share of fun out of herin time too.

Finding an aircraft was more difficult.There was no way I could afford the perfectaircraft for such a crossing. I wrestled withdecisions as to whether to sink myself intodebt and buy the relatively untested DiamondTwinstar or to save some money and go forfuel-thirsty old Beech Baron. There did notseem to be as neat an option as the Contessathat was available or affordable. I had a bigslice of luck at this point because I managedto get access to Cessna Caravan after thecompany I work for bought one. It is a greataircraft, but threw up its own challenges: it hada turbine engine for a start. Another steeplearning curve was packed in and I managedto get the CAA to issue the bits of paper Ineeded just in time for my shot at thecrossing in the May of 2007. It was tightthough – my third solo flight in a Caravan andmy first over an hour in length was over thefreezing waters north east of Newfoundland.

Following a refit, Golden Eye was deliveredto Lanzarote and, after a series of minor last


Double Jeopardy

Gooley CrossingsGood For ProstateBesides fulfilling a longstanding ambitionto determine that he was pretty good atnavigating, Tristan’s Double Atlanticcrossing also served a second purpose –to raise awareness of prostate cancer.‘When I first came across the ProstateCancer Charity in 1997,’ he says, ‘I’mashamed to say I knew a little aboutbreast cancer but absolutely nothingabout prostate cancer, despite the factthat it’s the most common form ofcancer in men.’ Prostate cancer kills aman every single hour of every singleday, somewhere in the world, and manymen shy away from getting checked earlybecause of where the prostate is, andhow it is examined. Break the machostereotype – get checked today, or findout more at www.prostate-cancer.org.uk

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minute repairs and a lot of packing andchecking, she was ready to go. Soloexperience on her was again limited by time. Ionly had about four hours single-handedexperience when I slipped out of Lanzaroteand none of those were at night.

Some of that may sound a bit reckless towiser heads, but I don’t think it was. One ofthe major tasks in taking on challenges of thisnature is being able to assess where theserious risks lie. It is impossible in one lifetimeto prepare as thoroughly as would be idealfor this sort of thing, so in some ways it boilsdown to time allocation. I spent many hoursthinking through worst-case scenarios andnot a lot of time choosing food. ConsequentlyI spent twenty-six days hating what I waseating, but managed to climb ashore in StLucia in one piece.

Message In A BottleIt was the same thought process with theflight last May. Hours went into fuelcalculations, weather assessments andunderstanding the icing risks. Some lessserious areas inevitably got overlooked. Onmy flight from Reykjavik to Wick, Scotland Irealised that I had not taken care of one pre-flight check: I would not make it to landing

without going for a pee. It took quarter of anhour to fight my way out of the immersionsuit and pee in a bottle, but it didn’t kill me.

I have written accounts of the crossingselsewhere, and if truth be told I’m not surethey were as interesting for me as the yearsof preparation. They were physically fairlystraightforward, but mentally taxing andexhausting. It had been a long road.

To have achieved such a long heldambition did give a tremendous feeling of

satisfaction, but that did not compare to beingable to look forward to a 2008 full of nicewalks in the park with the family. Map andcompass in the bag, of course.


In the last few years, GPS has become thetechnology of choice for users on land,sea and in the air. Unfortunately, in the

field of general aviation, little guidance hasbeen provided by any official body on how touse this marvellous aid to navigationeffectively, while maximising safety in the air.The RIN is in a unique position to providethis guidance, as part of its aim to further thedevelopment of navigation. First, let’s take alook at the major kinds of incidents thatoccur in general aviation, and the role thatGPS could play in each case.

GPS And Fatal AccidentsThe most common type of fatal accident inGA is loss of control in flight1. Might it be thatpilots become distracted by attempting to useGPS when they should be flying the aircraft –the so-called ‘fiddle factor’ that has led toquestions over the safety of in-car satellitenavigation systems? Certainly, this has beensuggested in aviation, but as yet no hardevidence has been presented to support theallegation. Until it is, we have to say that GNSSis unlikely to affect loss of control accidents ingood weather. However, it does appear2 thatreliance on GPS may be a major factor inpilots continuing their flight into bad weatherand consequently losing control when theyhave no visual reference.

The second most common type of fatalaccident in GA is controlled flight into terrain(CFIT). It has been argued (and there seemsto be a growing amount of circumstantialevidence3) that GPS has encouraged suchaccidents because pilots may now believe theyare always aware of their position duringflight. They appear to be confident4 in theirability to follow a planned track withoutencountering obstructions. However, tobalance such circumstantial evidence, we mustremember that the information available canactually improve safety if used properly.

GPS In Light Aircraft

Part OneVisual NavigationGPS has become a standard piece of kit onboard light aircraft in recent years. Civil Aviation Authority SafetyPromotion Officer and RIN member David Cockburn examines the pros and cons of this trend towardsusing electronic eyeballs in light aircraft.

Commercial databases often include terraininformation and provide warnings to helpavoid it. These are very useful if the databaseis up-to-date and the equipment is properlyset up to give such warnings.

Another type of fatal accident, feared bymany pilots, is mid-air collision. Traditionalavoidance has always been provided by theprinciple of ‘see and be seen.’ Here weencounter a serious concern about the use ofGPS receivers in light aircraft. In the past, a pilotwho could not see their navigation features, ortheir destination, would turn back or not eventake off. However, the average pilot now ownsan instrument that can provide not onlyaccurate position information, but alsoguidance to his destination. Indeed, in manycases it can even guide the pilot along the finalapproach path without them actually being ableto see the runway ahead.

Pilot interviews have shown that severallight aeroplane and helicopter pilots havebeen encouraged to continue flying when thein-flight visibility was less than 3000 metres(the UK legal minimum for holders of anaeroplane Private Pilots Licence), becausethey were confident about their position andwere happy they would not collide with theground or an obstruction that was on it. Thefact that they could not see if someone elsewas doing the same did not occur to them; orperhaps if it did, it did not concern them.

Visual Flight RulesThere are limitations in the Visual Flight Rules– the traditional ‘see and be seen’ method ofcollision avoidance. Human factorsprofessionals have emphasised for many yearsthe difficulty in physically seeing anotheraircraft on a collision course with one’s ownin enough time to take avoiding action.

Some years ago, Cranfield University andthe British Gliding Association carried outsome trials, which were intended to compare

the visibility of certain markings on touringmotor gliders. In actual fact, the most notableresult of the trial was to demonstrate howdifficult it is for a pilot to see and avoidanother aircraft even in conditions of goodvisibility. The trials aircrew, who hadparticularly strong incentives to keep a goodlook-out, were in some cases unable to spotthe other aircraft until they were less than 30seconds from collision. The results of thattrial show that spending more than 5 secondsat a time looking inside the cockpit istantamount to relying completely on chanceto prevent a mid-air collision.

However, chance is not such a badprotector. There have been relatively few mid-air collisions in UK airspace in recent years.Those that have occurred have of course hitthe headlines, but we need to put the matterinto perspective. According to CAA figures5,between 1985 and 1994, 61 GA aeroplanedeaths were attributed to Controlled Flightinto Terrain (hitting the ground in badweather), and a further 90 to the pilot losingcontrol of the aircraft (29 in cloud) but only13 died as a result of mid-air collisions.

While we are about to shift our focus tothe mid-air collision hazard, it is interesting toponder whether the fear of such accidents isreally only a consequence of the pilot’sperception (misplaced or not) that they are incontrol of most of the other hazards thatmight kill them. They have, or believe theyhave, the skill and knowledge to see suchproblems coming. However, they feelparticularly vulnerable to the collision hazard,not only because there will be little or nowarning of any such collision, but also becausethey know how difficult it is to see the threat.

The pilot can of course often obtain someassistance to reduce the collision threat ifthey choose to look for it. An Air TrafficControl Radar service, if available, is a usefultool. There are also many technological


GPS In Light Aircraft Visual Navigation

advances available or in the pipeline such asACAS or ADS-B. Glider pilots (who areparticularly susceptible to the collisionhazard) may invest in FLARM. However, as canbe seen from the results of the CAA’sconsultation into the proposed mandating ofMode S transponders6, few recreational pilotswant to make the major investment requiredto make these technological advancesgenerally effective. Currently, not many threatscarry a working (and switched on)transponder with an altitude transmission(few birds do so for example), so it remainsmuch more important to look out than towatch instruments. However, GPSmanufacturers are already producing a formof airborne collision avoidance system, whichalthough not as robust as the systems foundin large commercial air transport aircraft,prove that technology has the potential toreduce the collision hazard, especially if ModeS is mandated and adhered to.

Controlled AirspaceThere is a specific collision hazard which anyauthor hesitates to mention for fear of beingaccused of alarmism. However, were a GAaircraft to collide with an airliner insidecontrolled airspace, the consequences forrecreational aviation would be catastrophic,although of course less so than for the victimsof the collision. It seems contradictory thatjust as a navigation system has appearedwhich allows GA pilots to know exactlywhere they are, the number of those pilotsentering controlled airspace inadvertentlyseems to have increased. Although GPSoutages do occur, they are very rare, and wedo not yet seem to have suffered from anyinstances of malicious jamming, so theproblem must lie in the techniques used bythe pilots. Navigation techniques mustembrace GPS to obtain the benefits whilebypassing the pitfalls and allowing a reversionto so-called ‘traditional’ navigation in theevent of equipment or satellite signal failure.

The NAVSTAR SystemSadly, although a large and increasing numberof GA pilots have their own GPS receiver,even if only as a feature of a Personal DataAssistant (PDA), most of them have a lessthan thorough understanding of theNAVSTAR system which, when used properly(either knowingly or unknowingly), can maketheir life so simple. We ought to be fullyaware of the system and its possible pitfalls, sothey won’t be detailed here, save to mentionthat GPS jamming is potentially the mostlikely hazard to affect the general aviationsatnav user. Equipment manufacturers couldperhaps make their instruction manuals a littleeasier to understand, but human factorsconsiderations suggest that GA pilots are

their own worst enemies. How many of us,after buying a new household orentertainment gadget or piece of computersoftware, are guilty of ‘playing’ with it? Wemay start at the beginning of the instructionmanual, but when we discover that it can dosomething which attracts us, we concentrateon enjoying that function and leave readingthe rest of the manual ‘until we get around toit.’ This so often means we miss out on someparticularly useful functions that would makeour lives easier simply because we arenaturally ‘lazy’ when it comes to technology.

This is a major problem with GPS use. Thetechnology has so much to offer that theaverage GA pilot becomes overloaded withpossible information and switches off whenthey have reached a level of satisfaction withtheir new toy.

Basic Navigation TechniqueThe navigation techniques currently beingused by GA pilots tend to depend largely onthe instructors who originally taught them.Because of a lack of standardisation, the RIN’sGeneral Aviation Navigation Group is in thefinal stages of producing a leaflet containingsome basic techniques which are modificationsof those taught by the Central Flying School tothe Royal Air Force. These, it is hoped, will beendorsed by the Guild of Air Pilots and AirNavigators and the CAA, and be adopted byflying schools and individual instructors,eventually becoming the standard method ofvisual navigation used by PPL holders.

One of the major advantages claimed forthe method, which consists of two phases –pre-flight and in-flight, is that it permits thepilot navigator to minimise the time spent withtheir field of vision inside the cockpit. Ideally, inflight, all the navigator need do is set a headingfrom a known point until it is time to changetrack, then set another heading for the nextrequisite time. The rest of the time, they canbe looking ahead and around for possible

hazards such as other aircraft and badweather. They can also devote some braincapacity to thinking actively about thesepossible hazards if they are able to relax abouttheir position and future direction.Observation suggests that most flights intobad weather or into terrain are the result ofthe pilot being mentally overloaded, and takingnavigation out of the list of things the brain hasto concentrate on ought to reduce that load.

However, errors in calculations andweather forecasting, as well as flyinginaccuracies (the navigator is also the pilot),mean that the navigator needs to be sure theyare going the right way. Most errors will berelatively minor, but we need to try to allowfor human factors and ‘gross errors’ such asmisreading a heading by 90 or 100 degrees atsome stage, or applying drift backwards duringcalculations.

Activity CycleApart from a ‘gross error check’ shortly aftersetting heading, the system ought to be ableto accommodate the other inaccuracies if thenavigator can re-adjust track every so oftenbetween turning points. The RAF teaches an‘activity cycle’ including ‘fix points’ at an ideal6 minute separation. The pilot navigatorconcentrates on navigation for only as long asit takes to look for the fix point, identify it,decide on any alteration to heading or timingsand act on these alterations. The rest of thetime he or she can spend looking out forpotential hazards and occasionally carryingout appropriate routine safety checks.

Footnotes1 CAP 667 2 Bureau d’Enquetes et d’Analyses Study “on GPS events”3 US AOPA Air Safety Foundation found that 45% of fatal

accidents involving Technically Advanced Aircraft wereweather related, compared with 16% for conventionallyequipped aircraft

4 NASA ASRS 2007 study “General Aviation WeatherEncounters”

5 CP 6676 UK AIC 27 of 2007 (Yellow 238)


GPS In Light Aircraft Visual Navigation

The in-flight activity (as illustrated in figure1) should therefore be:1. Set heading2. Check for gross errors3. Fly the calculated heading and height until

the next ‘fix point’ is in sight4. Regain track and make any necessary

adjustments to heading or timing 5. Carry out a routine safety check and

continue the cycle of 3 & 4 until a turn isneeded

Routine Safety ChecksRoutine safety checks are traditionally carriedout every 10-15 minutes, and so would becarried out after every second fix point.These are generally accepted to be as follows:

F Fuel sufficient and as calculated, fuel tankselected appropriately

R Radio contacts as required, futurefrequencies set

E Engine, mixture set, carburettor heatedD Direction – Indicator (DI) aligned with

magnetic compass A Altimeter set to QNH (local sea level

pressure) or as appropriate, note safealtitude

W Weather suitable around and ahead, notebest direction for diversion if required

Turning PointWhen the next fix point is a turning point,more time is needed to prepare for the nextleg. Setting up the aircraft for the next leg in arush after a late sighting of the turning point isa recipe for human error. There is of courseno reason why the pilot navigator has to waituntil he can see his turning point beforepreparing himself for the turn, but there is anatural reluctance to do so. The setting upought to include a series of actions, which canbe stylised in a ‘WHAT’ check.

Pre-Turn ChecksW Weather along track and best directionH Heading from log or chart, look for a

feature along that track on which to rollout of the turn

A Altitude to fly and minimum altitude fromplog (pilots flight plan and log) or map

T Time expected to turn, reset watch if TPin sight

Once the turn has been completed, thecycle starts again with setting heading, ideallyfrom overhead the point. We need to makechecks every time we set a new headingwhich hopefully will identify any gross errors,and the same mnemonic can be used.

Post-Turn ChecksW Weather aheadH Heading checked against log, sun and a

major confidence feature A Altitude achieved and safe

T Time - clock started, time for next eventnoted

Pre-Flight PhaseFor the activity cycle to work properly, the in-flight phase relies heavily on the pre-flightphase. First the navigator must select theroute to pass over or close to suitable fixpoints. Considerable time needs to be spenton map study to identify the most suitable fixpoints for the activity cycle and then to workout how they will be identified from the air.This can be done long before the requiredheadings and timings need to be calculatedusing the most recent forecast conditions. Ifthe desired route takes the aircraft throughcontrolled or restricted airspace, which relieson suitable weather or ATC clearance,include planning for the worst case.

Method SummaryIt can therefore be seen that the wholeprocess consists of a sequence as follows:1. Select route – 2. Study and select fix points – 3. Weather planning – 4. Set heading – WHAT –confirm – 5. Fly – lookout - look – seek – identify – 6. Regain track – recalculate –FREDAW –7. Fly - lookout –look – seek turning point -

WHAT – 8. Fly over turning point – Set heading –

WHAT - confirm – 9. etc

In Part 2 of this examination, we willbe looking at how GPS could beintegrated and used within thisnavigation technique. Don’t missyour next issue of Navigation News.

Figure 1: Activity Cycle

Figure 2: Activity Cyclearound the turn

MARCH/APRIL 2008 NAVIGATION NEWS

Animal navigation is one of the mostfascinating areas of exploration inmodern science. It encompasses

orientation, migration, ethology, neurobiology,sensory physiology, ecology and entomology,and is also being used, through the branch ofbiomimetics, to provide answers toparticularly human dilemmas. What we knowabout how animals navigate through theirworlds is enough to bring the hardest cynic toslack-jawed wonder, and the amount that westill don’t know about how and why animalsget to and from their destinations makesanimal navigation one of the world’s hottestresearch environments.

The RIN, through the auspices of itsAnimal Navigation Group (ANG), has longbeen a champion of this cutting-edgeresearch, hosting regular conferences to allowthe world’s top animal navigation researchersto meet, discuss, present their work and keepthemselves up to date with what others inthe field are doing to advance ourunderstanding of animal navigation. This year’sevent, RIN 08, breaks the mould of previousconferences, and acknowledges the increasingpace of top-flight animal research. ProfessorJohn Kemp, chair of the ANG, explains.

‘In the past, our animal navigationconferences have been held at four-yearlyintervals. This was to give research teamstime to conduct new experiments, so thatthere would be new results to report at eachconference. However, in the ‘wash-up’meeting that took place towards the end ofRIN 05, we became aware that the pace ofresearch in the animal navigation field hadincreased sufficiently that the intervalbetween conferences should be decreased tothree years. In particular in recent years, theminiaturisation of tracking systems hasbecome a major factor, so that small animalsand birds can now be tracked on theirmigrations and their daily movements. Thishas resulted in a huge increase in our

RIN 08: YourConference

GuideThe Date: 2-4 April 2008. The Place: The University of Reading. The Event: RIN 08, the premier animal navigation conference. Be there and discover how bizarrely impressive animals really are.

knowledge of when and where animalsactually go. Many of the findings areunexpected, so there is a great deal ofexciting work involved in trying to explainwhy and how these movements take place.’

With the tide of animal navigationresearch so high, John is also hoping to see aresolution on the increasing vexed questionof how animals and birds sense the Earth’smagnetic field.

‘There are a number of controversialpapers on this topic, and it will be fascinatingto see whether RIN 08 leads to anyconsensus amongst the opposing views, orwhether these views become more deeplyentrenched,’ he says

So what can you look forward to at thisyear’s premier animal navigation conference?

Highlights Of The ConferenceA wise man – or altogether more

probably a wise woman – once said that wecan learn a great deal from the study of smallthings. Unsurprisingly then, RIN 08 kicks offon 2 April with a fascinating study of smallthings that also launches the question of

perception of the planet’s magnetic field. BobSrygley from USDA-Agricultural ResearchServices asks whether leaf-cutter ants orienttheir path-integrates home vectors with somekind of magnetic compass.

‘Leaf-cutter ants are ecologically andeconomically important, he explains. ‘They areresponsible for 17-20% of nutrient turnoverin the Neotropics. They forage up to one-quarter kilometre from their nest beneaththe tropical forest, where celestial cuescannot be used for orientation. Weinvestigated their ability at night to use thegeomagnetic field as a directional reference.We moved the ants to a chamber where thelocal magnetic field was reversed. In thenatural field, the ants oriented directlytowards the nest; but when the field wasreversed, a significant proportion oriented inthe direction opposite to the nest. Knowledge

www.rin.org.uk 15


RIN 08: Your Conference Guide

of how insects orient can be applied torobotics and pest management,’ he added,giving the paper a practical context.

Bee-n Here Before?If there is one branch of the insect world thatinspires more awe in human beings for itsnavigational abilities than ants, it is the bees, soit would be unthinkable for RIN 08 to ignorethem. As well as a fascinating paper onorientation to artificial landmarks in nocturnalIndian carpenter bees, the first session of theconference features the work of Rudolf Janderand his team at the University of Kansas,which significantly enhances our understandingof the way in which honeybees navigate.

‘We humans, honeybees, mice, andcountless other animals skillfully know how tofind our way around. For this, all we animalsmust, and do, share two basic capabilities: wehave to recognise places to which we want orhave to return and, in addition, we have toknow how to move among known places interms of directions and distances,’ said Rudolf.‘Currently my team is focusing on placerecognition. People recognise places mainly byattending to the constellation of distinctindividual landmarks. Honeybees, instead,purportedly use memorised panoramiclandscape memories, originally picked up as"snapshots" with their near omni-directionalcompound eyes. We asked the question -Could honeybees also attend to singled out,identifiable landmarks? We experimentallydemonstrated that honeybees can identify aparticular place by means of a single nearbylandmark that we have made recognisablydistinct by parallel black-and-white stripes.’

Third Eye WatchingMoving up into the kingdom of the lizards andamphibia, Augusto Foà will be presentingresearch on the capability of reptiles toperform spatial learning. Augusto will alsotackle the external third (or parietal) eyepossessed by lizards, the function of which has

remained relatively mysterious. ‘The discoveryhere was that the sun compass that lizardsuse to learn a new training direction onlyworks if the parietal eye remains unshielded.And surprisingly, the normal, image formingeyes are apparently not involved indetermining the sun disc position in the sky,’he says. Augusto’s investigation into thewonderful weirdness of lizards is a paper youwon’t want to miss, but it sits in a sessionpositively crammed with fascinating subjects –from homing behaviour in marsh frogs andthe sensory biology of sea turtles to RachelMuheim’s case for bi-coordinate magneticnavigation in newts.

If, like Professor Kemp, you want to hearthe finest researchers discuss the businessend of magnetoreception, the afternoonsessions on 2 April will be your own littlewonderland, including conceptual andchemical models of magnetoreception andalso exploring the geophysical constraints onthe biophysics of magnetoreception in a paperfrom Kirschvink and Walker.

The morning of day two at RIN 08 isliterally for the birds. Gabrielle Nevitt hasbeen using new technology to improve theworld’s understanding of how the albatrosstracks prey by sense of smell.

‘The work used GPS to track wanderingalbatross at ten second sampling rates as theywere foraging at sea. Birds were also equippedwith stomach temperature recorders so thatthe timing of prey capture could be recorded.

From the shape of the tracks we can inferthat birds were tracking prey by smell roughlyhalf the time. The other half of the time birdsflew directly to prey items before ingestingthem, suggesting that visual cues led them tothe prey. On average we found that birdscould detect prey from 2.5 km,’ she explains.Gabrielle adds that her work on the albatross,in collaboration with Marcel Losekoot andHenri Weimerskirch, was the result of afascination that had gripped her as a graduatestudent some 15 years previously. In this, sheis fairly typical – once you get a nose foranimal navigation research, it has a tendencynot to let you go.

The second session on bird migrationcovers some equally gripping subjects,including the great circle migrations of Arcticbirds and the results of orientation cage tests,as they apply to bird migration studies. Ofparticular interest is a paper from VernBingham from the University of Salzberg onmigratory behaviour as a factor influencingthe evolution of avian brain organisation.

‘The motivation for our work is a curiosityabout how the challenges of migration mayhave influenced brain evolution. Migration isassociated with a suite of adaptations at thecognitive, behavioural and physiological level.Many of these adaptations would necessarilybe associated with parallel changes in brainorganisation to support them. By looking atrelative brain volumes, volumes of brainsubdivisions and neurochemical markers, weare attempting to determine how the brains ofmigrants may differ from non-migrants. To datewe have focused on the old world stone chatand the new world lark sparrow. The speciesdifference we have observed offers interestinginsights into the factors that may determinehow "migrant brains" evolve,’ says Vern.

Deep And MeaningfulFrom bird brains, the conference next turnsits attentions to creatures of the deep. Indeed,exactly what role depth plays in aquaticnavigation is the subject of a paper from PeterFraser FRIN. Like Gabrielle, his work, whichinvolves hydrostatic pressure sensors and thesearch for the hydrostatic pressure sensor inanimals without any gas compartments has itsroots in a longstanding curiosity.

‘My route into work on hydrostaticpressure sensors has been long and tortuous,’he explains. ‘I started looking at neurones incrab brains as a PhD student and found aninteresting set which responded to rotatingthe crab around separate axes. This pointedthe way towards the balancing system whichwas highly analogous to our own semicircularcanals. I worked further on this system withDavid Sandeman at the Australian NationalUniversity between 1973 and 1975. Whileanalysing the system further I found that small


The Silent Service

changes in pressure in the blood systemsupplying the brain led to clear changes inactivity in the same balancing systemneurones. Later, back at Aberdeen University, Iput an isolated balancing system inside apressure cooker which was linked to acompressed air supply and I found that thesensory neurones responded to increases inhydrostatic pressure (ie pressure transmittedvia a gas or fluid, acting all round a body). Thatwas the easy bit.’

To get up to date with what Peter definesas ‘the difficult bit’ – including using datastorage tags and high resolution sonarsystems to narrow the knowledge gap on therole of depth in navigation, catch hispresentation on day two at RIN 08. Othermajor papers in aquatic navigation in the samesession include a dissection of three-dimensional orientation in fish form RobertHolbrook and Theresa Burt de Perera fromOxford, and an exploration of nocturnalorientation and object recognition throughactive electrolocation by Gerhard von derEmde from the University of Bonn.

Pigeons have long been famed for theirhoming abilities, making them a very popularsubject for study in animal navigation. Thatmeans only the finest pigeon research hasbeen selected for presentation at RIN 08,including Freeman and Biro’s modelling ofgroup navigation and another paper raisingthe importance of magnetic field variations,this time as a potential explanation for releasesite bias, from Mora and Walker from theUniversity of Auckland.

Humans Are Animals TooTo cap the three day conference, we’ll be takinga detailed look at mechanisms of orientationacross the animal spectrum, a subject sodiverse it’s probably best summed up in thesubtitle to a paper by Richard Holland ofPrinceton University. Looking at orientationand navigation in bats, the paper is subtitled‘Known Unknowns and Unknown Unknowns.’The session also offers delegates the chance toget their head around the deliciouslycounterintuitive “When Many Wrongs DOMake Right” – as Codling, Pitchford andSimpson explain the navigational benefits ofmoving as a group, and finally a reminder thathuman beings are animals too, with RolandMaurer from the University of Genevainvestigating the use that humans make of pathintegration – or dead reckoning as wesometimes call it – throughout their lives.

‘Path integration or dead reckoning, theprocess through which a moving agent cancontinuously compute its location based onits movements, is well-known to scientistswho study the orientation of ants andhoneybees, but, curiously, it is almost totallyunknown to cognitive psychologists,’ Roland

explains. ‘Its importance for spatial cognitionis being increasingly recognised, though; asevidenced by cells in the rat's brain that fire ina given location (hippocampal place cells), pathintegration helps to build a memory of theenvironment ("cognitive map") and tocontinuously update spatial representations,especially when visual cues are absent orambiguous. I used to work with Ariane

Etienne on path integration in hamsters asearly as 1979, and I now want to know moreabout path integration in humans, as, forexample, nothing is known about itsdevelopment in children.’

RIN 08 promises to be a fascinating eventno matter what your interest in animalnavigation, and as John Kemp says, despite thewealth of wonder that will be presented byspeakers and posters across the space of threedays in Reading, it’s not all about the work.

‘The RIN series of animal navigationconferences is unique because it provides theonly opportunity for researchers from manyparts of the world in this field to get togetherin one place. Hence the importance of thesocial aspect. By holding the conference on aUniversity campus and including all meals anda bar facility until late each evening, there arecontinuous opportunities for delegates tomeet and interact throughout the wholeduration of the conference.’

You heard the man – see you at the bar!

Human beings are animals with particular navigational skills, but just in case those skills shoulddesert you at any point during the three day conference, the University of Reading hasprovided maps and emergency contact details.The University Halls of Residents Reception Desk: +44 (0)118 378 8800Emergency contact number for the University Campus (24-hr) : +44 (0)118 378 7799Emergency contact number for the Royal Institute of Navigation: +44 (0)7767215512

In Case of Animal Navigation Failure


SecretsJohn Kemp is not a man totake a holiday lying down. InMarch 2008, he took what wassupposed to be a cruise downthe Nile from Luxor to Aswan.Being a typical RIN member, hewas soon on the bridge, wherehe learned that the Nile hasnavigational, as well as historical,secrets to impart.

It began as a simple project to find outhow the cruise ships that run up anddown the Nile were navigated. The M.S.

Serenade was a typical cruiser at 72 metres inlength, 1.6 metres draught and four decksextending some 10 metres above thewaterline. She was driven by 3 Volvo Pentadiesel engines with an ‘Aquapilot,’ levercontrol for both throttle and direction ofthrust of each propeller. An electronic displayindicated the orientation of the thrusters, butthere was no wheel as such and, in fact, norudder. Full speed was 22 kilometres per hour(km/h) which, with a 4 km/h current, gave 18km/h over the ground upstream and 26 km/hover the ground downstream.

Having made my project known, we weregraciously invited into the (wheel-less)wheelhouse by Captain Morsy and CaptainFathy, while our marvellous tour manager,Caroline Fayez, kindly and fluently interpretedall my questions and their replies. The twoCaptains alternated their duties throughoutthe cruise, Captain Morsy having the conn atthe time of our visit.

Captain Morsy explained that a chartwould be of little use because the navigablechannels were changing all the time.

‘So how do you know when a new shoaldevelops?’ I asked.

It was by the appearance of the watersurface, he said, and, indeed, even I could seethis in extreme cases. The Captains, with theiryears of experience, were much more finelyattuned to the wave patterns and other cuesthat gave warning of depth fluctuations. Moreskilled perhaps even than the AncientEgyptians, whose craft are often depicted witha bow-man probing the depth of water with asounding rod, or even (from 1500 BC) with alead and line.

The Captains had started their careers asboys, assisting their fathers on the river, astheir fathers had done before, and as one oftheir sons was doing now. The young man’s

immediate duty was to serve us with glassesof piping hot tea. He was learning the virtueof kindness to strangers from his courteous,and multi-talented mentors, as well as learningthe ways of the Nile.

To say that the Captains carried a chart intheir heads is no exaggeration. They each hada lifetime of familiarity with every feature ofthe River and were immediately conscious ofeven the smallest change. There was little elseto help them with their task. There are noaids to navigation on this stretch of the Nile.No buoys, no shore lights – nothing.

Certainly, to someone without theirexperience, the courses they chose were notat all obvious. It was not always a case ofkeeping to where I would have expected thedeep water to be - at the outside of bends forexample. And sometimes we passed veryclose to the shore on the inside of islands,which to my uneducated eyes seemed apositively dangerous course of action. At least,during daylight, it was possible for a Captainto place his ship visually in the right place atthe right time in relation to the observablenatural features along the river.

‘So, what about navigation at night?’ Iwondered. ‘Do you have radar? Or GPS?’

They did have a tiny radar, with a 16centimetre diameter screen. It was not

of the Nile


Secrets Of The Nile

observable from the conning position and itwas heavily screened so as not to interferewith the Captain’s night vision. It was hardlyever used, they said. There was somediscussion (limited by the language barrier) asto whether a small handset, mounted on theforward bulkhead and also heavily screened,might be a GPS, It did not look very much likea GPS, but the matter was rendered ratheracademic since it was never used.

Navigation at night, it seemed, wasconducted by observing the faint sheen of thewater and the loom of the riverbanks toestimate position. There were also powerfulsearchlights mounted on each bow. One ofthese could be flashed on for a few secondsat a time to illuminate the nearest bank. Tothe uneducated eye, this simply gave asnapshot of more palm trees, but it wasinstantly recognised by the Captain so that hecould verify his position. The duration of aflash was never long enough to impair hisnight vision.

Something else was worrying me. Howdid they govern collision avoidance – surely avery frequent requirement with so many shipson a relatively short length of the river. Onmost European waterways, ships keep to thestarboard side, but the Nile cruisers, whenthey meet, seem to pass green-to-green asoften as they pass red-to-red.

‘How do you know which side to pass?’ Iasked.

‘It is the ship that is heading downstreamthat decides,’ I was told. The decision, itseems, can be communicated by VHF, bywhistle signals and by observing the aspect ofan approaching ship. This observation ofaspect is not as straightforward as one mightexpect. The only masthead light is shownfrom a short mast, which is folded whenpassing under bridges. Green and redsidelights are carried, but they are notexternally screened to prevent them beingseen on the wrong bow as is the case fordeep-sea ships. On deep-sea ships, a screenextends forward of each sidelight for about ametre, and this prevents a sidelight from beingseen more than about 1½ degrees on theopposite bow. My own subjective estimatewas that a sidelight on a Nile cruiser could beseen a good 15 degrees on the opposite bow.

The pre-1974 COLREGS explicitly statedthat the rule for ships meeting does not applywhen both green and red sidelights are seenanywhere but right ahead, but it would clearlybe unwise to rely on that statement whennavigating on the Nile. A close green-to-greenpassing is a scary thing for a deep-seanavigator - especially when both sidelights ofthe other ship can be see right up to the lastminute!

Although whistle or horn signals wereavailable for arriving at passing agreements in

theory, they appeared to be used, in practice,exclusively to exchange greetings betweenships in the act of passing.

That left the matter of reaching a passingagreement by VHF. This seemed to incur thesame risk as making VHF contact for thispurpose at sea. That is, the risk of addressing aship other than the one that is intended. Thelanguage barrier again made it difficult to putthis question across. However, the answersgiven were that the Captains of the Serenadeknew the Captains of all the other cruisers,and the positions of their ships were regularlyreported by VHF to the River Police. Thiswould clearly have been importantinformation but, with five or six ships at atime in close proximity, it did not seemenough. However it is done, collisionavoidance is conducted with great efficiencyand, it has to be said, in terms of passingdistances, with great panache.

Ship control is another area whereCaptain Morsy and Captain Fathy excelled.With high, slab sides and a small draught, theeffect of wind on their ship is huge.Controlling the front end of the ship in afresh breeze was a circumstance crying outfor a bow-thruster, but none was fitted.Berthing and unberthing operations, whichoften involved many ships manoeuvring inclose proximity were, nevertheless, carriedout with great precision. Similarly, enteringthe lock and shooting the swing bridge atEsna were real ‘cork in a bottle’ operationsbut carried out with superb judgement bythe Captains.

Navigating a Nile cruiser is not a job forthe faint-hearted. The intricacy and thevariability of the navigable channels, and theabsence of navigation marks, form onechallenge. The nature of the tourist industrymeans that many cruisers compete to be inthe same place at the same time, and theconsequent heavy concentrations of trafficcreate another challenge.

My own feeling is that fitting bow-thrusters to the ships would be a usefulfacility. Otherwise, it is hard to see how moresophisticated instrumentation could improveupon the highly effective navigation routinelycarried out on the basis of experience andmemory by Captain Morsy, Captain Fathy andtheir colleagues in the fleet of Nile cruisers.When it comes to safely navigating one of theworld’s greatest rivers on a regular basis, itseems you either know the secrets of theNile, or you don’t.

My thanks are due to Captain Morsy andCaptain Fathy for their gracious hospitality, foranswering all my questions, and for allowing me totake whatever photographs I liked. Also to CarolineFayez for taking time from her many other dutiesto act as such an efficient and patient translator.

‘Do you have a chartof the River,’ I began


The choice of equipment to be takenon an expedition is governed largelyby two factors: the type of expedition

planned and the budget available. Our latestplan was to travel overland from England tothe Moroccan/Algerian border, venture ashort distance into the Sahara to a pointidentified some years previously as being ‘aninteresting place to spend a few days,’ and toreturn to England. The major constraintswere time – the expedition had to take placebetween 23 December 2007 and 4 January2008 – and money.

Though the possibility of undertaking suchan expedition had been bubbling away in ourminds for some time, it was not until lateNovember 2007 that circumstances combinedto allow us all to commit to it and thus the

Equipping AnExpedition

Steve Cater is probably the Institute’s most frequent, and possibly its most prolific, 21st century land-navigating explorer. Reports of his exploits in Navigation News may have given readers the impressionthat he’s mad as a box of frogs. Here, he explains the method to his madness, and shows the levels ofplanning required by any navigator who wants to go adventuring – and come back alive.

time available for detailed planning andpreparation was short. In terms of budget,£1,500 was the nominal amount agreed uponand this cost was to be borne equally by allthe three members of the expedition. Thecombination of these factors meant that wewere very much limited to utilising equipmentalready to hand, to minimise preparation timeand ensure the available budget could bedevoted to fuel and other expenses, ratherthan capital equipment. For planning andpreparation, the important items to considerwere therefore broken down into:• Vehicles and off-road equipment• Shelter• Personnel• Water/food/supplies• Navigation

Vehicles And Off-Road EquipmentThe need to use an existing vehicle ruled outthe possibility of building our long-plannedand minutely-debated dedicated off-roadkampfwagen, based on either a ForwardControl 101 Land Rover or a Pinzgauer. The vehicles we realistically had available tochoose from were:• Land Rover Series 2a SWB V8 petrol• Range Rover Classic 2.5 Tdi diesel• Range Rover Classic 6.2 GMC diesel

The oldest of the vehicles on the list, theshort wheelbase Land Rover, was alsoperhaps the least suitable for this particularexpedition. Currently part way through amajor renovation programme which willeventually see it emerge as a dedicated 2 manPathfinder vehicle, the Landy could have been



rushed into use for this trip but would havesuffered from a shortage of space andcarrying capacity. In addition, its V8 petrolengine, though eminently reliable and easy tomaintain - and with plenty of power in handfor driving through power-sapping soft sand,has a voracious thirst for fuel. Given that weplanned to cover some 4,000 miles in around10 days, budget considerations stacked upagainst the Landy too and it was relegatedfrom contention.

Just like the Landy, neither of the twoRange Rovers we potentially had to choosefrom was particularly standard. The older, aClassic two-door, is our dedicated mud-plugger: optimised for driving off-road in thedeepest of mud, ice or sand. Augmenting LodeLane’s OEM centre differential lock, whichlocks the front and rear prop shafts togetherto provide drive to both axles in loose mud,are two additional axle differential locks. Onthe rear axle is a Detroit Locker, which locksthe two rear halfshafts to ensure a spinningrear wheel cannot deprive the other ofpower, and a similar arrangement utilising aTrue-Trac locker on the front axle is intendedto provide the same capability to the fronttwo wheels. Together, these three differentiallocks comprise our ‘Invincibility Drive’ andshould ensure that no matter what theterrain – ice, mud or snow, at least one wheel(and hopefully all four) will still be driving!Naturally, this enhanced traction controlenables us to venture further into the mudthan is frequently wise before we becometotally stuck – weighing in at over two andhalf tons the Rover isn’t actually buoyant1 –and so it also sports an impressive array ofrecovery equipment. Foremost amongst these‘destuffing devices’ is a hydraulic winch drivenby the power steering system. There is muchdebate among the off-road driving communityabout the relative merits of electric versushydraulic winches with most opting forelectrically driven devices. Among our groupthere is no debate: the hydraulic winch isheavier, more expensive and slower inoperation but reliable, powerful and doesn’tkill batteries. 2 The Rover is powered by a 6.2litre diesel engine, a simple, low-revving beastwith massive torque but a little thirsty (25mpg) and occasionally prone to coolingproblems in the narrow confines of the RangeRover engine bay. That, and the fact that theRover is again only a two-man vehicle,eliminated it from contention for this trip.

Odin Rides AgainThat left us with our expedition-optimisedvehicle – Odin, a four door, 1983 Range Roverpowered by a Series 300 Tdi diesel engine.Capable of up to 35 mpg, wholly mechanicalin operation, with adequate torque andreasonable power, the engine was clearly best

suited to our fuel budget! The vehicle was atrue three-seater, the standard rear benchseat having been replaced by a single seat forthe navigator, a fridge and a rack for carryingup to four 25-litre jerry cans and a waterpurifier. The rear luggage compartment has awelded wire mesh cage within it for securityand usually transports personal luggage,vehicle spares, a range of recovery equipment,tables, chairs and a cooker. A roof rackprovides space for a folding tent, tyres andadditional jerry cans if required. Ourpreference is for older vehicles rather thanmore modern equivalents: we willinglysacrifice luxury and absolute performance forreliability and an ability to repair things with ahammer. The existing fuel tank has beenaugmented by a couple of long-range tanks,giving close to 140 litres of fuel withoutresorting to jerry cans. Standard procedurefor us on entering remote areas is to carryfull integral fuel, plus three x 25 litre jerry cansof water and one x 25 litre can of dieselinternally. More jerrycans of fuel can becarried on the roof rack or bull bar inextremis, but that entails a fine balancing act,trading off weight and vehicle stability againstextended range. Fully laden, the Rover canweigh over 3 tons and so the suspension hasbeen uprated accordingly with Old Man Emuheavy-duty springs and dampers. Tyres are BFGoodrich All Terrains, a tyre with areputation for toughness and longevity –important when traversing flinty desert! Weusually run the tyres at 35 psi on tarmac, butfrequently reduce the pressure to around 25psi when on soft ground, increasing the size ofthe contact patch to spread the load. In really

soft going, the tyre pressures are oftenreduced to as low as 20 psi (occasionally, even15 psi) to prevent bogging. As pumping tyresmanually, several times a day, in hot Saharansun is not something to be undertaken lightly,the Rover is also fitted with a heavy-duty 12Vcompressor and airline.

ShelterFor shelter we generally use tents forportability and convenience. We have avariety to choose from, each suited to aparticular environment: some small one-mantents ideal for individual back packing orcycling, others able to support two people inextreme Arctic or mountain conditions, andyet another capable of providingaccommodation and a communal area for upto 8 people in desert environments. On thisoccasion we elected to make do with thetwo-person roof tent that is both carried anddeployed on the Rover’s roof for Ben andEmma, and a portable aluminium camp bedfor me. I’m not averse to sleeping out underthe desert stars, particularly when snuggledinside two Arctic issue sleeping bags! Theroof-mounted tent is by Eezi-Awn of SouthAfrica, suitable for both hot and dry or coldand wet climates. It can be deployed orpacked away by one person in a matter of

A screenshot from OziExplorer showing our position and route being plotted on satellite imagery in real time as wetravelled across northern Morocco. The interface offers many options for customisation.

1It is however equipped with a snorkel…2On one particularly memorable occasion, we watched in amusement as aLand Rover became bottomed out in deep mud at a quarry at Tong,Yorkshire. With knowing looks, we reversed up to a point nearby and as oneof our crew began to spool out a hundred feet of winch cable a secondbegan to attach anchor strops to the rear chassis member to stake ourRover firmly to the ground. A third crewmember fired up the portablebarbeque. Two Land Rovers equipped with electric winches raced up to thestricken vehicle, smiled at our elaborate but ‘unnecessary’ preparations andpromised to have the vehicle free before we had even finished unspoolingour cable. Thirty minutes later, as we dined on steak and onion sandwiches,the stricken vehicle was pulled effortlessly from the mud by our winch whilethe owners of the electric winches ate humble pie, one with a burned outwinch and the other a boiled battery.



minutes, and can be stowed with mattresses,sleeping bags et cetera within it. It places theoccupants high above ground and thus equallyabove local wildlife. Its disadvantages are thatit increases both the top weight of the vehicleand aerodynamic drag. In addition to campingin the desert, we also planned to stay at aKasbah or two in Morocco, and at Formule 1or similar low cost motels in the run acrossFrance and Spain should the weather, orsurroundings, be too unpleasant for camping.

Water/FoodThe water we carry with us and/or obtain enroute is stored in black plastic jerry cans – thedarkness inhibiting algal growth – and is in anycase treated with iodine. Before drinking, thewater is passed through a ceramic/silver/carbon filter system to remove particulates,kill bacteria and virii, and remove toxins.Including the iodine.

Food stores generally comprise a selectionof tinned or dried meats, fruit and vegetables,all augmented wherever possible by locallypurchased fresh produce. Eating localdelicacies is one of the great experiencesassociated with travel, though in the case ofsuch epicurean delights as pickled snake brain,goat’s heads, rat or other sundry dead things

on sticks it sometimes helps not to be able toidentify it until after digestion has been fullyand safely accomplished. In North Africa andmost of the Saharan region food can bebulked out with what we believe to be a formof the Elven bread that sustained Frodo andSamwise all the way to Mordor: a flat, round,fibrous cake of wheaty dough that has theabsorbency of talc, the toughness of rubberand a taste all of its own.

A real luxury is the 12-volt Engel fridgefreezer installed right next to the navigator’sstation. Utilising a swing motor compressorrather than the cheaper but less reliable andefficient conventional compressor/evaporatorsystem, it can freeze liquids in even Saharanheat. It also makes an excellent table on whichto plot courses and balance the GPS/laptopwhile of course ensuring that the navigator isnever more than 10 seconds away from arefreshing chilled drink of, er, water. It’s alsoconveniently and annoyingly out of reach ofthe driver for those occasions when thenavigator has thought to stock it withsomething more appealing than water.

Expedition MembersBe it for an expedition to the Pole, a flight tothe Moon or a three-year marine

circumnavigation of the world, organisationsgo to great lengths to determine and selectthe ideal candidates with which to staff it.Psychiatrists are consulted and runes read:what is the ideal combination of skills,temperaments and personalities needed foroptimum performance? What personalitiesare best suited for a desert crossing requiringthree people to live in the close confines of acramped, bouncy, fume ridden metal box for14 hours a day? Could you spend two weeksliving with an argumentative, arrogant, know-it-all perfectionist? I have to, and that’s justwhen I’m travelling alone. My view is thatanyone who can tolerate me is probablyunhinged enough to make a great travellingcompanion - undoubtedly having adequatefoibles of their own to distract them fromenquiring too closely into mine. If they havean inability to understand the concept ofdefeat, can shoot, skin and cook small furrythings and laugh in the face of adversity (andauthority), so much the better. They’re of theright stuff.

Navigation: Equipment And PlanningNavigation was one of the most importantissues to be faced on this expedition. The sitewhere we proposed to see in the New Yearof 2008 was chosen some time ago from asatellite photograph of the northern Saharaon the principle that it ‘looked interesting,’would be acceptably warm and would presenta suitable challenge to reach. Oh, and weweren’t sure exactly where it was, politicallyat least. Though its latitude and longitudecould be ascertained readily enough, and aroute to it planned, whose jurisdiction it fellunder was less certain. Some maps show it asbelonging to Morocco, others to Algeria. ThePolisario claim it and our Michelin map,politically neutral, just marked it as ‘interdit’.As navigation was to be my primary role inthe expedition it seemed a good idea to meto be able to pretend I knew what I wasdoing, or at least have an impressive array ofkit I could blame for being in the wrong placeat the wrong time if necessary. In addition topaper mapping, I therefore decided to take ahandheld Magellan Meridian Color Pro GPSunit interfaced to a laptop computer runningmapping software.

LaptopThe laptop chosen for the expedition was aPanasonic CF-27 Toughbook, a ruggedised,water resistant computer which couldwithstand the rigours of being bouncedaround in a Rover for a couple of weeks. Anow obsolete model, it would have cost wellover £2,000 when new in 2002 but on thecurrent second hand market was available forThe ‘navigation station’



only a few hundred pounds because of itsrelatively low specification when compared tonewer models. Though a 300 MHz Pentiumprocessor with 128 Mb of RAM memorymight seem very modest by today’s standards,it is quite adequate to run most mappingprogrammes. The existing 10 Gb hard drivewas replaced by a newer model with acapacity of 80 Gb in order to allow full earthcoverage of NASA’s LandSat satellite imagesto be stored on it in compressed SID format.Three operating systems were loaded: BSD6.1, Linux (Xandros) and Windows 2000 –the last being old enough for most of its bugsto have been ironed out.

OziExplorer Mapping/GPS SoftwareBeing a Yorkshireman, I’m geneticallyhardwired with an aversion to paying foranything, but OziExplorer is an exception: itreally is that good. Microsoft could learnlessons from its ease of use and appropriatefunctionality. A free version is available for trialand evaluation (taking notes Bill?) but I defyanyone to use it for a serious expedition andstill not believe that paying to register it is theright thing to do. OziExplorer was developedby Des Newman to allow a user to import ascanned map, nautical chart, aerial photographor satellite imagery into the software,calibrate it and then use it as the basis fornavigation. The software can interface withmost commercially available GPS receiversand uses their NMEA output for almost realtime tracking and navigation functions. Routescan be plotted on the software and thendownloaded to a linked GPS unit forindependent use. OziExplorer’s full capabilitywould take too long to describe here3 butsuffice it to say that for overland expeditionuse, nothing else I have tried comes closeunder £1,000. OziExplorer costs around £50 for an electronic download fromwww.oziexplorer.com and will run on very modest computers. The software has also been designed for marine-basedactivities and has many features built into itfor this purpose.

Magellan Meridian Colour GPS UnitMy Magellan Meridian Colour GPS unit isnow four years old. A ruggedised (the moreastute reader can probably spot a themedeveloping here…) model purchased in 2003for service in Iraq, it has subsequently morethan proven its ability to survive whatever Ican throw at it. It does though have avoracious appetite for batteries comparedwith more modern units using the latest low-energy chipsets, a pair of alkaline AA lasting

only for around six hours and considerablyless than that if the screen backlight is usedoften. Time to establish a fix from a cold startis pretty good, generally of the order of aminute or so, and only a few seconds after ahot start. It has the ability to connect to anexternal antenna – a facility we made use ofby mounting an external antenna on the roofof the Range Rover – and to a computer via aserial lead. This unit, linked to the pc runningOziExplorer, provided the main electronicnavigation capability for the expedition.

Garmin GPS VThe driver elected to take a second GPS uniton the expedition, a Garmin GPS V that wasmounted on the dashboard. Relatively new, itwas loaded with detailed maps of theEuropean road system and was able toprovide turn by turn route directions until wereached the Straits of Gibraltar. We had nocompatible electronic mapping of Moroccoand so used it as a conventional position-fixing unit to double check against theprimary system once across the Straits.

G-Ray GPS Data LoggerFor this expedition, the RIN loaned us acouple of small G-Ray GPS data logging unitsso that we could track our progressindependently of the other GPS units. Nolarger than a matchbox, the data logger storesthe position fix from its internal GPS chipsetto a rolling buffer which can subsequently bedownloaded to a computer by a standardUSB link. According to the manual, the unitcan output NMEA data to a PC via the USBlink and so should also have been able todrive the OziExplorer software but we werenot able to take any meaningful NMEA datafrom the unit.

MapsPaper maps don’t eat batteries, can be readalmost instantly and are often easier tointerpret than their electronic counterparts.Added to that, they can easily be drawn on,have a variety of non-navigational functionsthat their electronic counterparts simply can’trival, and look pretty. We took several, givingus a wide choice of borders in case we wereaccused of being somewhere where otherswould rather we weren’t. Of most value oncein the desert were a couple of air navigationcharts, their emphasis on terrain features,contours and heights proving very useful in anotherwise relatively featureless landscape.They may also have had the most accuraterepresentations of borders…

Navigation StationFor some 4,000 miles I was ensconced behindthe driver in what we termed the ‘navigationstation’, peering intently at the laptop display

balanced on the fridge much as I imaginethose pioneering pathfinders of the 1940shuddled over their H2S and Oboe sets. I thinkit takes a particular kind of mind to spendlong cramped hours in a windowlesscompartment4, checking the paper mapagainst a digital display, trying to calculate newheadings faster than a silicon chip and takinggreat delight in any topological discrepancies.My colleagues agree and assert that I doindeed possess a very peculiar kind of mind.

A moving map display was generated onthe laptop, being fed position data from theGPS unit positioned on the driver’s headrest.An external GPS antenna was mounted onthe roof rack to give it the best possible viewof the satellite constellation. The fridgeprovided warmth (the evaporator/condensersystem vented directly against the seat,) a plotting table for paper mapping and enough alternative discomfort (elbow roomwas non existent) to take my mind off thelack of leg space.

So Much For The Equipment,What Of The Plan?Our plan was relatively simple: drive acrossFrance, Spain and Morocco, head out into theSahara, spend a few days in the sand whileeveryone else was eating turkey leftovers andthen return home. Departure day was 23December and we needed to be back in theUK by 4 January, having covered around 4,000miles in the interim. An ‘X’ was marked onthe map, fuel usage predicted so that we hadthe bare minimum in the tank consistent withsafety until we reached Morocco (wherediesel is very significantly cheaper than inEurope), and the vehicle loaded with supplies.Two hours before dawn on December 23rdwe scraped the frost from the windscreen,climbed aboard and turned the ignition key.The engine roared into life (much, we imagine,to the annoyance of Ben’s neighbours) and wewere Sahara bound…

‘Following Yonder GPS Blip’What happened next? Was all theplanning sufficient? Did our threekings…well, two kings and a queen ofOccident…find their way into the desertfor Christmas? Did ‘RINdianna’ Caterand his compadres ever find out whichside of which borders they were actuallyon? Is navigation from a fridge-top reallypossible? Watch this space…

3A more detailed overview of the software was given in the July/August 2004issue of Navigation News. The current version of the software is even morecapable, and can now import and calibrate NASA’s SID format satelliteimagery automatically.4The rear windows of the Rover were blacked out, allegedly for security andto reduce solar heating of the vehicle interior. I harbour a sneaking suspicionthat my compatriots simply didn’t want to be seen in my company.


MAILBOX

Galileo – Cheaper ThanNorthern RockLoth as I am to dispute with our learnedPresident I feel he went a little too far in hiscriticisms of Galileo during his opening speechat NAV07. In particular I must take issue withDavid when he says:

‘Independence has proved to be a myth.The mass market demanded technicalcompatibility between Galileo and GPS, not aseparate and different Galileo. And USnational security blocked Europe’s freedom tooperate Galileo without US co-operation. Sofree-to-air Galileo has become essentiallyanother version of GPS.’

I'm afraid he misses the real point ofindependence and rather confuses things byclaiming that technical compatibility meansindependence is impossible. Actually, it wouldmatter not a jot if Galileo were absolutelyidentical to GPS in all technical respects; whatis important is who controls it? The indisputablefact is that GPS (and, for that matter, Glonassand Beidou) is a military system under thetotal control of a (to the EU) foreign militarypower. That does not matter for military

purposes. Where it does matter, very muchindeed, is whether it is the intention to use itfor civil purposes that require legislation. If itwere just a simple matter of providing us allwith another 30 satellites to plug into our in-car navigation systems then he might have apoint, but it is not.

I am told that within the next few yearsnot a car will be made without satnav built in;hardly a light aircraft flies or a small boat sailswithout it; my daughter, a keen fell walker, tellsme no-one ventures on the mountainswithout one; practically all cellphonetransmissions are synchronised to it, and soon. These applications are all very well but nolegislation attaches to any of them - no-onetells these users that they MUST use it onpain of breaking the law. Therefore, if GPSwere ‘switched off’ tomorrow, whether bymilitary denial measures or not, there mightbe a lot of complaints about the dastardlyAmericans but there is absolutely nothinganyone could do about it.

On the other hand, if it were proposed touse a GNSS as a primary system for airnavigation, that is, a system all commercialaircraft would be required to carry by law, asthey do VOR, DME and ILS today, then it is acompletely different picture. Liability for thecorrect operation of such systems lies withthe contracting States; if they do not work,or, worse, give misleading information, legalrecourse can be had directly to the Stateconcerned. Extremely complex safety caseshave to be made out for every detail of theiroperation, involving inspection of all aspectsof their design, operation, control and

maintenance. Being military, it is simply notpossible to do this with GPS since only thosedetails of its operation considered safe toreveal are in the public domain. USAF SpaceOps will not divulge to even the most high-falutin’ international organisations the finedetails of exactly how GPS is controlled fromSchriever AFB. Of course, this also applies toGLONASS – the Russians are even lessforthcoming.

Since the potential benefits of GNSS areso great, there is only one answer, and that isa truly international system owned, operated,and controlled by a civil organisation willing tomeet all the requirements for a fully-traceablesystem. That is one of the major driversbehind Galileo, and one that is studiouslyignored by its critics. It is true that getting 26different countries to agree on anything is amajor problem but attempts to do so in suchan important area should not be derided.

And a word as regards cost. The currentcost of Galileo is quoted at £1.7Bn, so let'sdouble it to £3.4Bn just to be realistic. Itseems a lot of money until it is comparedwith the fact that the EU does not know thetrue cost of its agricultural budget to betterthan £20Bn, and the UK itself has a grey areaof ‘unallocated resources’ in its annual budgetof something like £25Bn. Perhaps a mere £3.4Bn on something that might actually proveuseful is not too bad a bet! In any case theUK would only pay around 17% of this cost(0.5 Bn); compare that with the £30 Bn (andcounting) apparently immediately available forbanking crises like Northern Rock.

Walter Blanchard

You should be receiving this issue ofNavigation News just as the April edition ofthe Journal of Navigation is being delivered.What a multitude of choice articles andpapers to read!

By turning to the last paper in theJournal you will be able to find the finalanswer to a query first raised in theJournal in May 2004 that highlighted anexamination question posed to AirTransport Pilot Licence candidates by theJoint Aviation Authorities. The originalpiece on the cross track distance betweena Great Circle route and a Rhumb Line atthe mid-longitude point sparkedconsiderable interest and some of thesuggestions have been published in theJournal – many have not. Paul Hickley, whowrote the first article, now closes off thetopic with the definitive answer – I hope itwill not be the cause of an Internationaldiplomatic incident!

Staying with the aviation world, turn toPeter Brooker’s detailed criticism of theexisting cost benefit analysis of SESAR, theSingle European Sky Air Traffic ResearchSystem. He highlights significant concernsabout the productivity of European air trafficservices and whether the published discussionpapers will provide the accurate and bestguidance for European decision makers whenthey ponder the future of air traffic in Europe.Lee and his team from Korea and Australiareport on flight trials examining theperformance of a GPS/pseudolite/INS systemduring aircraft approach and landing.

There are six papers dealing with maritimetopics, ranging from worries that the merchantfleet’s dependence on modern electronicnavigation aids has led to a reduction in watchkeeping skills, through an analysis of an 1878collision on the River Thames, to a newmethod of collision avoidance and ending withpapers on GNSS/INS integration and low cost

GPS in maritime navigation and survey. Thefinal maritime paper uses vector analysisfor sight reduction in celestial navigation.

Land based navigation is thebackground for a paper on a calibrationprocedure for MEMS inertial sensors anda paper on the role of 4000 taxis in theIntelligent Transportation System used inShenzen, China.

Satellite systems receive attention withsuggestions how best to modeltropospheric delay in GPS signals, andexplain a novel technique to deal with theinterference caused by DME/TACANsignals in the E5/L5 frequency band of thenew generation of GNSS. There is also afeasibility study for a regional navigationtransceiver system capable of competingwith GNSS.

All these papers can be found in theApril edition of the Journal – check outyour copy today.

The Journal of Navigation – the April 2008 issue


AFFILIATE PROFILE

South Tyneside College is a world-renownedcentre of excellence for marine education andtraining.

Established almost 150 years ago as aMarine School, it is the only college in the UKto gain ‘National Nautical Centre ofExcellence Status’ from the UK Government,in recognition of the exceptional quality of itsmarine and nautical training.

Today, the college caters for nearly 3,000full-time and over 18,000 part-time students,who study hundreds of different courses andsubject areas.

Within marine education, the collegeoffers a wide range of courses in navigation,engineering, communications,survival/seamanship, catering and hospitalityincluding Officer Training programmes,Certificate of Competency courses andDegree Level courses.

It also works regularly with many of thekey industry players to develop bespokecourses.

Since its very inception, the College hasresponded to the requirements of maritimetraining and education. It boasts an impressivelist of industry firsts – one of which is theintroduction of IALA (International Associationof Lighthouse Authorities) approved trainingfor VTS (Vessel Traffic Services).

VTS operators expedite the passage ofvessels in and out of ports in order tosafeguard shipping and protect the marineenvironment. Working closely with MCA andPort Authorities, the College developed thefirst ever VTS training programme with MCArecognised accreditation.

In conjunction with the MCA, the Collegealso developed national occupationalstandards for VTS in the United Kingdom.

The College’s working relationship withthe MCA extends to providing courses whichupdate knowledge including the MCANautical Surveyors Refresher Course and the

Affiliate Organisation – South Tyneside College

MCA Navigational Equipment AwarenessTraining.

Navigation training at the College includesNavigation, Radar and ARPA Simulation –Operational and Management, OperationalUse of ECDIS and extensive Pilot Training andassessment.

Pilots come to the College from all overthe globe and it has been involved in someextremely high-profile training programmes.

When the King of Morocco wanted todivert commercial shipping traffic out of thePort of Tangier in order to develop tourism,South Tyneside College was instrumental inPilot and VTS Training for the new Tangier-Med Port.

Even before the new port was built, SouthTyneside College created a simulation basedon construction plans and began trainingPilots for the Port Authority. This meant thatthe Pilots were fully prepared when the portbecame operational.

Thanks to extensive ongoing investment,South Tyneside College’s marine and nauticaltraining facilities are amongst the best in theworld.

The College’s Marine Simulation, Ports andHarbour’s Department features six simulatednavigational bridges – including two full

mission bridges - a full mission enginesimulator, two VTS Simulation Suites and aRadar Station featuring a navigational aidslaboratory and four bridge Transas Navi-ProSimulator. There is also a four bridge Polarisdesk-top simulator, which is mainly used forECDIS training and the bridge watchkeepingmodule of the NARAS (Ops) course.

The department has played an importantrole within the local marine community.

When the offshore oil production vessel,FPSO Bonga, came to the River Tyne to havetopside processing modules installed over thecourse of a year, South Tyneside College wasinstrumental in ensuring that the vesselnavigated the River safely and successfully.

Chris Thompson, Head of the MarineSimulation Unit at South Tyneside College,said: ‘At 300,000 tons and 305 metres long,the Bonga was by far the largest vessel everto enter the Tyne. We knew that bringing it inwas going to be a major operation, so thenavigation planning process started monthsbefore the actual ship arrived.

‘Our first task was to improve an existingcomputer generated visual simulation of theRiver Tyne and create a virtual model of theBonga. This then enabled us to run simulatedexercises for Bonga in a variety of weatherand tidal conditions.

‘Navigating any river relies strongly on thelocal pilots’ knowledge of the waters so, inorder to plan the simulation exercises, weworked very closely with the Tyne Pilots andTyne Harbour Master.

‘Once the simulation was set up, weworked up a number of scenarios todetermine the parameters for the safe passageof Bonga. As well as assessing its handling in avariety of weather conditions, we looked atthe number of tugs necessary and where thetowing points for these tugs should be.

‘With the knowledge and experience ofTyne Pilots to assist in running thesesimulations, we were able to ensure that theactual event went extremely smoothly and the


AFFILIATE PROFILE

Bonga navigated the Tyne without incident.’At South Tyneside College, students learn

about traditional navigation methods as wellas cutting edge navigation technology.However industry and associated trainingtrends have changed over the last few yearsand on some courses the focus is now muchmore on people skills than on the technology.

Senior lecturer John Hewett points out:‘You can have the most advanced technologyin the world but if you have people operatingit, who aren’t working together well as a teamor aren’t communicating effectively, thenpotentially mistakes are going to be made.

‘Many of the key marine employersrecognise the importance of this issue and wedeliver dozens of courses every year aimed atimproving the effectiveness of ship’s teams.’

Maersk is a good example of this.The Maersk Company has been working

closely with South Tyneside College since itopened its Newcastle training centre inFebruary 2007. Maersk instructors workalongside South Tyneside College personnelto deliver courses in crew resourcemanagement training and ship handling skillsto a selection of Maersk’s 2,500 staff.

Now Maersk has booked 40 weeks oftraining throughout 2008 with South Tyneside

Published bi-monthly, its specially targetededitorial keeps you informed of changes and developments in this dynamic market sector.

The officalmagazine of The Royal Instituteof Navigation

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College to upskill around 400 of its staff. Thisvaluable contract means that the College’s newbridge simulator is almost fully booked for thewhole of this year. Richard Booth, GeneralManager of Maersk Training Centre inNewcastle, said: ‘The College is one of only twoin the UK that can offer a connection betweenthe engine room simulator and the bridgesimulator, enabling us to carry out real-life shipoperational scenarios as training exercises.

‘It is these facilities and the quality ofteaching and support on offer which havehelped to secure our deal with the College todeliver this year’s training needs.’

South Tyneside College is now looking totarget new markets, which can benefit fromits expertise. In another global first, theCollege is investing in new software,developed by Kongsberg, which will allow aconnection between the engine roomsimulator and the bridge simulator using acruise vessel as the simulated model.

This will enable engineers and bridge stafffrom cruise ships to be trained together inrealistic exercises so that they can experiencethe results of their actions in a safeenvironment.

As well as offering tangible financialbenefits from insurance savings, the integrated

courses can vastly improve communicationand understanding between the bridge andengine room and allow ship personnel tooperate more effectively as one team.

Chris Thompson said: ‘This newsoftware will revolutionise operationaltraining for the cruise industry. Althoughtraining programmes already exist for bridgeand engine room cruise vessels separately,there really is no substitute for trainingexercises which simulate a real-life situationin real-time with the entire ship’s staffworking together.

‘This training will ensure that engine roomand bridge personnel from cruise vesselslearn to function more effectively as acohesive team and gain a much greaterunderstanding of the challenges and demandsof each other’s working areas.

‘Hopefully this will have a tangible financialimpact for the sector, as well as reducing thenumber of accidents and incidents at sea.’

The integrated ship simulation trainingshould be available for the cruise industryfrom May 2008.

To find out more about South TynesideCollege and the wide range of courses it offers,please contact the information centre on(0191) 427 3900, or log on to www.stc.ac.uk.


News • People • Events RIN FOCUS

Groups andBranchesCroatian BranchThe Croatian Branch is hosting the 1st GNSSVulnerabilities and Solutions Conference asBaska, Krk Island, Croatia between 7-9September 2008. Global Navigation SatelliteSystems (GNSS), such as the successfulGlobal Positioning System (GPS) and theproposed European Galileo, are here tostay. GNSS have applications across adiverse range of technological, commercialand environmental sectors and have nowcome to the attention of the general public.

There is a current and growing reliance onGPS, for instance, within a diverse range ofsafety critical applications, such as landtransportation, marine navigation and civilaviation. Its use has also become embedded inmany other aspects of human activity, forexample in construction, mining, construction,agriculture, surveying, atmospheric andenvironmental monitoring. This three dayevent will focus on problems andvulnerabilities, and in particular developmentsaiming to improve the accuracy and reliabilityof GNSS. It is aimed at bringing togetheracademia, industry and the user community inorder to disseminate information on GNSStechnology and applications, with the aim ofraising awareness of recent developments.

By the time this issue of Navigation News ispublished, all potential speakers and presenterswill have submitted their extended abstracts.Final decisions regarding the acceptance ofpapers will be reached by 1 June, when theauthors of accepted abstracts will be notifiedand asked to submit their papers (up to 10pages recommended) by 1 July, 2008.

Renato Filjar

Scottish BranchThe February meeting of the Scottish Branchsaw members in Greenock on the Clyde,visiting the new Northern Lighthouse BoardTender Pharos, latest in a line of that nameand launched last year. Pharos’ work involvesservicing and repair of buoys and storing andmaintenance of lighthouses around the coastof Scotland and the Isle of Man, as well asoccasional work for Trinity House in Englandand Wales. In addition she undertakescommercial work for harbour authorities andthe North Sea oil industry.

Pharos has all the latest navigation andcommunication aids, in particular DynamicPositioning which enables the ship to be heldstationary on a precise GPS position whilstthe large aft-deck crane is used to positionbuoys. The bridge is very large, allowingcontrol of the ship from multiple positions.There is a helipad on the bows and space for

lifting heavy items by helicopter on the stern.The top half of a north cardinal buoy satthere waiting, the latest type with solar panelson all four sides and LED light at the top.

Aside from our group’s principal interestin the bridge and the navigation possibilities,the rest of the ship had much of interest. Thecrew of 18 is comfortably accommodated inidentical single cabins with furthersupernumerary cabins for visitors, especiallyfor when the Patron Princess Anne and theCommissioners go on inspection visits. Everyneed is catered for, from electrical and joineryworkshops to changing and laundry space fordirty working gear. Catering is clearly to ahigh standard, but offset by a small gym,included at the request of the crew. Theengine room and propulsion systems wereparticularly impressive and the engineers inthe group lingered long amid threats oftransportation to Oban. Everywhere theemphasis in the design and operation of theship is on safety, and especially fire safety.

Barbara Wright

Solent BranchWith violent storm force 12 at the Needlesand a damaged tanker being towed to Fawleyas I write these notes, the weather iscurrently dominating the news in the Solentarea. The good news is that thanks to theworld wide web, one can be kept up-to-datewithout being wind-swept or wet. As well asall the normal sources of weatherinformation, there are a number of local websites that are well worth a mention.

www.ais-live.co.uk provides lots of newsand is particularly interesting, because itincludes the current AIS plot of ships in theSolent and the Channel - name, course andspeed, call sign etc. It also shows the ship’sdestination, but this is only accurate if theMaster keeps it up-dated.

If you want to find out the actual windforce and direction before setting off,www.sotonmet.co.uk provides this for a number of locations including theBramble Bank.

The Queen’s Harbour Master,Portsmouth, runs a most useful site providinga range of information for both local andvisiting vessels, including tidal data. It also has avariety of links to other sites. You can alsoregister with him to receive local notices bye-mail. www.qhmportsmouth.com

To learn about Solent sailing events, yachtclubs, classes and much more for therecreational sailor, the site to visit iswww.scra.co.uk

The above comments lead neatly to theRIN’s own website – www.rin.org.uk, onwhich the Solent Branch has its own section.We receive a steady stream of invitations fromother organisations to join in their events.Some of these are at quite short notice andapart from e-mail; the only economic way ofpassing these on is by the website. Thewebsite also includes a ‘forum’ section; pleaseuse this, among other things, to suggest ideasfor the next season’s programme.

Thanks to our own activities andinvitations, the period mid January to mid-


RIN FOCUS News • People • Events

March have been particularly busy with eightevents, covering topics as varied as ‘TheHistory of K-class submarines’ through to‘How Marine Animals Navigate.’ There will bemore about the latter in the next issue ofNavigation News.

Visits are always popular. It was clear froma recent visit to the RN Marine EngineeringTraining school, HMS Sultan, that thestandards being set and achieved are as highas they ever were. The RN has had to adaptto meet the aspirations of modern youth, butit has succeeded in doing so while stillmaintaining a military ethos. It wasencouraging to see the emphasis being placedon hands-on training and limited use ofclassrooms. Written examinations have beenlargely replaced by practical tests.

A regular feature of the Solent Branch’swinter programme is our annual visit toOrdnance Survey. This year, Richard Peckham,of EADS Astrium and UKSpace, gave us afascinating insight into the technology, futureand, not least, the politics of Galileo. This eventwas introduced by our President, ProfessorDavid Last. It was David’s final visit as Presidentto the Solent Branch before he hands over therole at this year’s AGM. David and his wife Jeanhave been great supporters of the SolentBranch. We are most grateful to them andwish them every happiness in the future.

Looking to the future, our final local meetingof the season will be at the Warsash MaritimeAcademy on 17th April at which Dr ChazDixon, also of EADS Astrium, will describe thelatest trials they have been carry out off Obanon Pseudolites. Charles assures us that theselittle chaps may look and sound like Daleks, buttheir role will be to help navigators and not to‘EXTERMINATE!’ Do not let the title of thistalk put you off; it will be most interestingpresentation – not least because Charles willtell us about how they had to survive on maltwhisky when the water ran out!

Mike Highwood

Animal Navigation Group By the time this issue of Navigation News iscirculated, some of you will be reading it atour RIN 08 Conference at the University ofReading (see the feature on page XX).

There are only minor changes to theConference Programme that was enclosedwith the last issue of Navigation News.

Registrations are still being received at thetime of writing this report, but it is alreadycertain that attendance will be greater thanthe 100 or so which was the best achieved atprevious animal navigation conferences.

A feature of RIN 08 will be the attendanceof Brett Westwood and colleagues from theBBC Natural History Unit. They will becollecting material and conducting interviewsfor the BBC4 radio series, ‘World on the

Move.’ This comprises some 40 programmesbroadcast at 11.00 on Tuesday mornings, alsoavailable on the BBC website(www.bbc.co.uk/BBC4/worldonthemove)

Sponsorship for the Conference has kindlybeen provided by the Company of Biologists,DSTL, the US Navy and possibly also by theUS Air Force. These contributions are muchappreciated and are used to keep registrationfees as low as possible while ensuring that theRIN does not make a loss, and to assist withaccommodation costs for post-graduatestudents.

The Spring issue of the ANG Newsletterwas distributed in March (and is available onthe RIN website). It contains nearly 70abstracts of papers on topics which includenot only the usual suspects such as turtles,migratory birds, bees, and pigeons and fish, butalso creatures less studied in their navigationalabilities such as pit vipers, crocodiles,penguins, cockroaches and domestic dogs.The Newsletter was compiled, as always, byPinky Grocott and edited by Theresa Burt dePerera. Their efforts in producing this 23 pagedocument, packed with information, are muchappreciated.

After many problems associated with thereconstituted RIN website, Pinky Grocott hasre-established his Animal Forum, which standsat 350 members in 34 countries. HisBibliography on the members side of the RINwebsite continues to grow. It currently standsat over 10,000 references and lists over 7000research papers.

In the next issue of Navigation News, welook forward to being able to report on yetanother successful conference in our AnimalNavigation series.

John Kemp

GANGI am writing this news on my way back from ahighly successful visit by the GANGpresentation team to the RIN’s ScottishBranch at the Two Bridges Hotel, SouthQueensferry. The long-term weather forecastfor the evening was foul – very strong windsand heavy snow showers. However, while thewind did blow there was no snow and theBranch royally entertained us. Thepresentation room was full with an excellentaudience who were very interested andresponsive with questions on the day’s subject– ‘The Uses and Abuses of GPS by GA.’ Onemore such presentation is planned for thespring to the East Staffordshire AviationGroup in Burton on Trent on 24th April. Inyou live in the area, we would be delighted tosee you at this event, details can be obtainedfrom RIN HQ.

It is with great regret that I must tell youthat Arthur Creighton has decided to leavethe GANG to pursue other interests. We all

owe him a deep debt of gratitude for thework that he has done over the past nineyears. He has contributed to the GANGCommittee, helping in many ways, frommaking presentations to providing visualmaterial for show stands and for a short timehe was the Chairman until he took over thetask of running TopNav from GordonWansbrough-White. For the last eight yearsArthur has meticulously planned the TopNavroutes, improved the paperwork and briefingsand last year introduced trackers into thecompetition, together with an updatedmarking regime. The popular and vibrantTopNav competition, which Arthur has leftbehind, does great credit to the Institute. AllGANG members wish Arthur well for thefuture and are delighted to hear that he will beremaining on Council and continuing to takean active interest in the M&F Committee.

David Cockburn has volunteered toundertake the planning and organisation ofthe flying side of the TopNav competition,while I will mange the administrative side. TheWhite Waltham competition will take placethis year on Saturday 12th July and we stillhope to stage a TopNav North on Saturday24th May at an airfield in Yorkshire. As soonas the venue is confirmed we will sendGANG members details of the event.

It has been noted by some that most ofthe GANG’s activities centre on the PPLholder who flies VFR in the UK and mainly inthe southeast of England. Indeed the VFR pilotgroup is the largest GA grouping by far andmost activity does take place in the SouthEast so it could be said that GANG caters forthe masses. However, over the past year or sowe have tried to take GANG and its activitiesfurther a field as indicated in previous editionsof Navigation News. In the coming year,GANG would like to spread its range ofactivity still further and engage in theproblems faced by the amateur GA pilot whoflies IFR. However, to achieve this we do needpositive contributions from IFR qualifiedpilots, so if you are interested then please letme know and join the GANG.

John Gentleman

HANGThe first HANG talk which will be held at1430 on 9 Apr 08 at Shoreham Airport. Thiswill be close to the Navigation Newspublication date but advance notice hasalready been given to HANG members. Thefirst talk will be by our ex-Chairman BrianKendall on ‘The Prelude to Radar.’ This willdeal with the Sound Mirror System of the1920s and early 30s and then the variouselements that eventually led to its replacementby the first radar, the Daventry Experimentand finally a brief description of CH radar.

The second talk will be by the present


News • People • Events RIN FOCUSChairman, Keith Hope-Lang, on ‘Mosquito PROperations in the Med.’ It is closely based onthe experiences of a friend who flew ascamera operator in Mosquitos.

The meeting will continue the idea of anartefacts table. Most of us must have manymiscellaneous objects at home, so we areencouraged to bring two or three along forother members to see.

The meeting will be held in the terminalbuilding at Shoreham Airport, which is like atime warp – so much so that it regularlyfeatures in period films and shows such as thePoirot series. There is a café with a full range ofsnacks and meals and a fine view of the airfield.

The second summer meeting will be heldat the other traditional location of TangmereAir Museum. HANG has used Tangmere andShoreham for many years now. The meeting isplanned in the usual format for Wednesday16 July. More details will follow in future issuesof Navigation News.

Keith Hope-Lang

LN&LGOn 26 February 2008, Graeme Griffiths andNigel Wall of the LN&LG flew over to jointhe Croatian Branch at the University ofZagreb, to give presentations on road tollcharging, including GNSS and its advantagesand disadvantages. Renato Filjar, Chair of theCroatian Branch, announced that he hadorganised a press conference, breakfasttelevision interview, and an audience ofaround 200 for the event, comprisingstudents, officials from local and nationalgovernment and other dignitaries.

We were met in Croatia by Renato andhis team - Kreshimir Vidovic and MarcoSevrovic from the Institute of Navigationbased within the University Transport Faculty.For dinner, we were joined by four professorsfrom the University who gave us a picture ofwhat we were getting into, the feel of whatthey were trying to achieve, and how wecould help them achieve their goals.

By the morning we had modified thedialog of our presentations to be of morefocused assistance to them.

The Dean, Professor Ivan Bosnjac, openedthe workshop, followed by Renato, then mypresentation about the RIN. Getting to themeat of the matter, Nigel gave the assembledcrowd the benefit of his knowledge of theEnglish road toll charging schemes beingassessed in the UK, and I followed with apresentation on the vulnerability of GNSS.Finally, Nigel gave a presentation on ‘Planningfor the Future,’ with ideas on collaboration inR&D. Kreshimir and Marco rounded off theevent with their presentations on ‘Conflicts ofVehicle Flows in Traffic Networks,’ and ‘TheDisadvantages of Current Croatian RoadCharging Policy and Improvements.’ Over an

excellent buffet lunch, we had a chance tomeet some of the officials and students and toanswer many queries.

The following morning we were taken tothe University and given an insight into theresearch the transport faculty was doing toimprove congestion and how they hadgathered the data.

Later we were taken to the Universityairfield for what we thought was going to bean aerial survey of the road system. I hadcasually mentioned to the professors that Iwas training for my private pilots licence overTuesday night’s dinner, but I was still taken bycomplete surprise when Goran Kovacic thepilot invited me to fly the Cessna 172N underhis supervision. Nigel sat in the back takingphotographs of Zagreb City from 2000ft.

Following a thoroughly successful inauguraltrip, more co-operation and visits are in thepipeline for the future. A very special thankyou to Renato for making this first visit such amemorable one.

Graeme Griffiths

SNUG/SSIGThe Technical Committee recently agreed tothe renaming and refocusing of the SatelliteNavigation User Group to become the SpaceSpecial Interest Group. The rationale behindthis change is that the original purpose of theSNUG to consider the needs of GNSS usershas moved to be firmly in the hands of theLand, Sea and Air SIGS. You may indeed havenoticed that the link on the Institute’s website has already been renamed.

However some issues do not have anobvious home in one of these SIGs and hencethe RIN feels that a Space SIG is the rightplace to consider issues such as Galileo andthe other up and coming (or re-coming)global navigation satellite systems.

Following the recent Galileo: To Be orNot To Be seminar at the RGS, a number ofpeople came forward to consider how theseissues can best be addressed by the RIN.

Initially ideas will be exchanged by email andhopefully a small driving committee will beformed. If you would like to be part of this e-committee, then please let either myself([email protected]) or the Director([email protected]) know.

Tony Scorer

Space WeatherIn our last report we noted that 2008heralded the start of a new solar cycle. Thefirst two months of the newly christenedcycle 24 have not been uneventful. We havehad several periods of mild geomagneticactivity: 5-8 January, 14-19 January, 1-3February, 10-15 February, 18-19 February and27 February - 1 March. This last period wasthe most significant with activity levelsreaching a storm classification globally.

For those interested in viewing the aurorain the UK chances unfortunately remain slim.All activity during this time was mild, onlyproviding entertaining light shows for those inthe auroral regions around Alaska, Canadaand Scandinavia. The best viewpoint howeveris from space, as the crew of the InternationalSpace Station discovered during the event onthe 1 February.

All these periods of geomagnetic activitywere caused by coronal holes on the sun.These are vast regions where the sun’smagnetic field is directed outwards allowingthe solar wind to escape. In general the solarwind - a constant stream of charged particlesemanating from the sun - travels at around400 km per second towards the Earth. In acoronal hole this wind can accelerate toaround twice that speed. This fast solar windstream can buffet the Earth’s magnetic fieldgiving rise to the mild geomagnetic activity wehave seen for the past few months.

Sarah ReayNational Geomagnetic Service

British Geological Surveywww.geomag.bgs.ac.uk


WHAT’S ONGANG24 AprilAlbion Hotel, Shobnall Road, Burtonon Trent DE14 2BEThe Use And Abuse of GPS in GAA joint East Staffs Flying Club/RIN event.Mark Batin, David Cockburn and JohnGentlemen explore the dos and don’ts ofusing GPS in General Aviation.All are welcome and there is no charge. Tobook your place, contact Hugh Clarke on 01283 531556 [email protected]

21-23 MayParc Aberporth, WalesEuropean Students’ Competition on UnmannedAircraft SystemsA number of universities are entering AUVsof less than 20 Kg to perform four feats offlying and navigation – a pylon race, precisionflying through a virtual box, spotting objectsand a spot landing. RIN President ProfessorDavid Last is one of the judges and the RINis sponsoring a prize of £500 for the bestnavigation performance. Check the RINwebsite, www.rin.org.uk for further details.

24 MaySherburn in Elmett, YorkshireTopNav NorthTest your navigational skills flying ‘blind’ fromclue to clue in the first ever TopNav Northcompetition. For more details, contact KathyHossain on 020 7591 3135 [email protected].

HANG9 AprilShoreham AirportCome and join HANG members atShoreham Airport for their first meeting ofthe summer season and don't forget to bringyour old relics along! The meeting will openwith a talk by Brian Kendall on ‘The Preludeto Radar.’ This will be followed by KeithHope-Lang speaking on ‘Mosquito PROperations in the Med.’ For more details

Small Craft Group17 April 2008 at 1500 Royal Thames Yacht Club, 60 Knightsbridge, London SW1SCG Committee Meeting and AGM. Jointmeeting with the Royal Thames Yacht Club The Small Craft Group committee meetingis at 1500. The AGM will open with drinks at1800, followed by a talk on at 1845 – TrainFor Trouble. All Members, Associates andguests are welcome, especially to the talk.There is no charge or need to register.Those wanting supper later (£26 with wine)should book direct with RTYC Receptionon 020 7235 2121.

18 June Imperial College LondonNew Navigators DayThe RIN’s annual seminar allowing the beststudents in navigation research and developmentto show their work to an audience of peers,tutors and industry players. Contact KathyHossain on 020 7591 3135 for more details.

*9 July Royal Geographical Society, 1 Kensington Gore, LondonRIN AGMWhile the AGM itself is free, the reception will bepayable. NB – The date of this event has beenchanged to accommodate exciting developmentsin the day’s programme. Make sure you have it inyour diary, and watch www.rin.org.uk for details.

Boscombe Down Branch10 April at 1815Lecture Hall Building 452, Boscombe DownHelicopters Then And NowExplore the history of helicopter developmentand the capabilities of today’s modern machineswith Air Marshall Colville.

15 May at 1815Lecture Hall Building 452, Boscombe DownSatellite Navigation: Truths And MythsRIN President Professor David Last explores thetruths behind successful GNSS.

19 June at 1815Lecture Hall Building 452, Boscombe DownThe GIOVE-A MissionThe GIOVE-A mission, precursor to Galileo, isexplained by Dr Stuart Eves of Surrey SatteliteTechnology Ltd.

Solent Branch17 April at 1930 Warsash Maritime Academy, Southampton Future Harbour Ops Guided By Pseudolites A talk by Dr Charles Dixon FRIN. A joint meetingof the Solent Branch and the Nautical Institute,hosted by the Solent Branch. Prior booking is notrequired, and guests will be welcome.

23rd April 2008 - 1830 for 1845Southampton Solent University, Sir James Matthews Building, Above BarStreet, Soton SO14 7DWGriffon HovercraftMathew Gibson of Griffon Hovercraft willdescribe the variety of uses to which hovercraftare being put through out the world and the greatsuccess they are having. This meeting is being runby the Chartered Institute of Logistics. RINmembers are invited, prior booking is notrequired and there is no charge.

The following meetings and lectures areopen to all members of the Institute andtheir colleagues. Most are non-fee paying,with the exception of those marked with anasterisk (*). Most events can now be bookedthrough the website www.rin.org.uk

*23-25 April Pierre Baudis Convention Center11, Esplanade Compans Caffarelli,Toulouse, FranceENC-GNSS 2008 – The European NavigationConferenceThe ENC-GNSS conference is a uniqueopportunity to meet all the key actors in the navigation area and to beinformed on the latest development innavigation and positioning systems,techniques and their applications. High-level scientific activities will behighlighted during the conference. The performances of the GNSS systems,their space and ground segments and the user equipments are steadilyimproving to fulfil the need for information on location everywhere,including out-door and in-door areas.Associated with mobile communicationterminals, the new navigation systems offerthe opportunity to design an infinite numberof new services. For more information, visit www.toulousespaceshow.eu/enc-gnss08/index.htm

*10-12 June Canary Islands Fruit Terminal, ABP SouthamptonSeawork 2008Seawork International is the biggest andfastest growing business to business event for the commercial marine andworkboat sectors in Europe, attracting more than 6000 high calibre visitors from 40 countries across the globe. It is a one-stop forum where buyers, sellers, innovators and legislators cometogether for three invaluable days at oneincomparable location. RIN will be having a stand at Seawork – come along andsupport us.

*13-15 JuneWycombe Air ParkAeroExpo London 2008This event will showcase all sections of the market, including the latest aircraftavailable - from light aircraft, or pistons andturboprops from all the majormanufacturers, to Gliders and PowerGliders; AeroExpo has them covered. RINwill be having a stand at AeoExpo – comealong and support us.

Documents

Navigati n NEWS - The Natural Navigator · decision originated with the US Volpe Report of 2001 which identified the vulnerability of GPS to interference, spoofing and solar storms