This paper is the fourth chapter of a series on Air Navigation Systems during theperiod from the early oceanic flights and the inception of commercial aviation to the introduction of INS in civil aircraft. Comments on the content of the paper would be welcomed by the author and the editor.

This paper was presented on 20 February 1991 at a half-day meeting on haven charts for yachtsmen. The meeting was organized by the RIN in association with the Honourable Company of Master Mariners, the Royal Cruising Club and the Cruising Association. Adam Kerr is a Director of the International Hydrographic Bureau, but the opinions provided in this paper are his own and should not necessarily be construed to be those of his organization.

This, and the following five papers, are a selection from those presented at the RIN91 Conference on Small Craft Navigation. The Conference was held at the Warsash Campus, Southampton, over the weekend 6–7 April 1991. Copies of thecomplete proceedings are available from the Director, price £30 to non-members and £20 to members (exc. postage and packing).

In 1987 a special meeting of IALA held at Trinity House in London expressed a common purpose to enhance and expand existing Loran-C coverage in North-West Europe and the North Atlantic. After two years of negotiation, agreement was finally reached in January of this year to proceed with the project. The countries involved are Canada, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom, with cooperation from the United States and Denmark. They will re-equip six existing United States Coast Guard stations and use two French stations together with four new transmitters to provide four chains, covering the whole of NW Europe and most of the North Atlantic.

High-speed navigation brings its own problems. These are mainly concerned with time and space, and the inability to carry out many of the normal functions associated with navigation due to the motion of the boat. The time available for navigation is compressed and, at 30 knots, a buoy sighted 1 mile ahead is just two minutes away. Decisions have to be made quickly and the navigator needs to be presented with information in a readily usable form. Many of the traditional techniques of navigation can no longer be used easily, and new techniques which take into account the high-speed environment have to be developed.

Engine performance data, including fuel consumption data, is freely available in the sales literature published by most of the major manufacturer' or marinizers of diesel engines. Boatbuilders, similarly, quote the fuel capacity of their craft in all but the most superficial of brochures.

There is a great sense of movement and progress in navigation today. The excitement lies in the ability to do things which were not possible with traditional media or at best were difficult and time-consuming to achieve. So this paper is not about the desirability nor the timescale of the ECDIS (Electronic Chart and Display Information System) replacing paper charts for primary navigation. It is about the flexibility and creative power opened up by new technology.

Criteria and a methodology for evaluating the relative effectiveness of different navigation aids in a coastal region, taking account of the ship-borne equipment, human factors and the needs of the navigator, have been discussed in the Nautical Institute' recently-published book on Pilotage and Shiphandling. The method is based on the product of the probabilities that the equipment will be fitted, that it will be available (in reliability terms), that it will be properly used and that it will provide the required information.

The following two papers were presented at a joint Royal Aeronautical Society/Royal Institute of Navigation conference on ‘European Navigation into the 21st Century’ on Tuesday 12 February 1991.

The existing system of point-source radio navigation aids deployed throughout the European Region (e.g. VOR, DME, NDB), is inherently inflexible and suffers from a number of problems which degrade its efficiency; providing little scope for route capacity expansion. Area Navigation (RNAV) is seen to offer the answer to many of these deficiencies. Many aircraft are already fitted with RNAV – a system of navigation that allows track maintenance to defined levels of accuracy without the need to overfly point source aids. However, the full benefits of RNAV, including the introduction of more direct fuel efficient routes, arrivals and departures, and substantial increases in route capacities made possible by the application of reduced lateral and vertical separation criteria, cannot be fully realized until virtually all aircraft are equipped to a precision RNAV standard, and minimum aircraft systems performance specifications are introduced. This is unlikely to be practicable before 1998.

Timescales have been established for the progressive implementation of RNAV capability. High levels of cooperation between European states should ensure that operational implementation is achieved in a coordinated, efficient, orderly and safe manner. Certification and operational standards are being developed jointly and European guidance material, developed under the auspices of ICAO, is soon to be adopted by ICAO RGCSP for global application. Appropriate legislative amendments are being developed in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe. All the present indications are that the implementation of RNAV in Europe will proceed successfully on an evolutionary basis, between now and the turn of the century.

For the foreseeable future, and despite a forecast reduction in the amount of activity, military flying will continue to embrace the diverse requirements of low, medium, and high-level route navigation, as well as the less structured, but more demanding, tactical navigation, principally carried out at low-level. As East-West relations have improved, defence budgets have come under increasing pressure and, whereas military projects have been in the vanguard of navigation system development in the past, the stagnation of military flying rates has been overshadowed by a dramatic expansion in the commercial sector. Consequently, the balance has shifted and many developments in all spheres of navigation are now led by civil requirements. Nevertheless, there continues to be close cooperation within NATO, with nations attempting to keep in step with each other and with international developments.

This paper was presented at an RIN meeting on ‘Air and Marine Radar Developments’ on Wednesday 16 January 1991.

During the last decade there have been significant developments in the civil marine radar field, resulting in: (1) Improved radar detection performance; (2) Improved operational facilities; (3) Improved reliability; (4) High brightness, daylight viewing, colour and monochrome displays with full ARPA performance; (5) Integrated radar and navigation systems; (6) Reduction in costs.

This paper is one of four presented at a joint meeting with the Honourable Company of Master Mariners on 17 April 1991.

A recent paper by Cox, ten Have and Forrester is planned to be the first of a series describing the work of the European Vertical Studies Sub Group (VSSG) set up under the ICAO panel for review of the general concept of separation. The present paper has no connection with the VSSG work.

This paper was presented at the West German-Soviet Workshop on Scientific and Industrial Cooperation in the use of GLONASS, held in Leningrad, USSR, September 1990. At this meeting, the author represented the Inter-Union Commission on the Allocation of Frequencies for radioastronomy and space research (IUCAF).