On Oct 9, 12:12*pm, Wayne.B wrote:
On Thu, 9 Oct 2008 11:14:58 -0700 (PDT), "
...http://williams.best.vwh.net/avform.htm

Good site, thanks.

I have a Dutton's somewhere but haven't cracked it in years. *I think
the Naval Academy used it as a navigation text at one time. * :-)

You're welcome. Somebody posted it here a while ago. I'm sorry I've
forgotten who, but thanks to them. I have tested most of the
algorithms there and they work.

I worked all the problems in the Sailings chapter in Dutton's because
I wanted to make a Mercator sailings calculator -- GC calcs are a dime
a dozen. I was amazed at how bad the text was. I left the book in
Hawaii but if my memory serves the algorithm they provide for Mercator
sailing is not generalizable and only works in special cases in the
NW. The problem they work is so full of errors that even a casual
glance shows it to be impossible -- they did crib the answer but all
their work is wrong. There were also serious problems with the GC
section. This for a book that is still the navigation text at the USNA
and has gone through 14 editions... Presumably that means no one at
the Academy has bothered to work or even closely read the sailings
problems... ... Dutton's does have really nice illustrations...

--Tom.

--Tom.