Phil Steele's prècis of Dries Bulstra's paper on flight planning prompts me to recall flight planning procedures on the North and South Atlantic in the days of RAF Ferry Command. The sparsity of radio-navigation aids, coupled with few weather reports and even fewer diversion airfields made flight planning and en-route navigation an interesting challenge. RAF Ferry Command rose to the challenge, aided by volunteer captains from American civilian airlines. The catalyst for this success lay in decisions taken in 1935.

The original paper, entitled Flight Planning Before Computers 1946–1959, was written by Mr D. Bulstra in 1995. Written from a civilian operator's point of view, it includes very full explanations of the principles upon which the flight planning techniques were based, including mathematical derivations, examples of meteorological charts, and tables and graphs of aircraft performance. The abridging author has aimed to produce a short and accessible paper that explains the concepts without necessarily involving the reader in further complexities, while departing as little as possible from Mr Bulstra's framework and wording. For those who wish to look more deeply into the subject, the original paper can be seen in the Cundall Library of the Royal Institute of Navigation (Ref. 400.01.14).

This paper and the following 5 papers were presented at the Institute's NAV93 Conference on The Application of Advanced Systems. The conference was held in London in November 1993. The full Proceedings, containing some 42 papers, are available on application to the Director, price £30 for Members and £40 for Non-Members.

Europe is moving towards a more closely integrated air traffic management system through the European ATC Harmonization and Integration Programme (EATCHIP). This paper explains the need for such an approach and how it was brought about by capacity limitations in the current European air traffic system. It describes the key strategy of progressive harmonization and integration by the various States, examines the roles of the European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC), the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), EUROCONTROL and the European Commission in the management of the Air Traffic Management (ATM) development programmes. It also reviews the longer-term planning of a future system with an enhanced relationship between the air and the ground, and addresses the navigation aspects of ATM systems.

This is a synopsis of a paper that formed the 1991 Anderson Memorial Lecture. It was presented at a combined meeting of the Bristol Channel and Boscombe Down branches on 21 February 1991

During the 1939–1945 conflict, the development of navigational aids, particularly for the purpose of bombing the opposing nation, took place at an unprecedented rate. The life of any system was only the period of time it took scientists of the opposing nation to determine the nature of the aid and devise an appropriate countermeasure. So much so that in several cases, the time from conception to operational service could be measured in months.