Modern Methods in Sea and Air Navigation
(Sec Page 17, January, 1927, Proceedings)
Commander Archer M. R. Allen U.S. Navy—I consider this the best article on the subject of navigation published in recent years. It represents as the author states, twenty-four years of patient labor and a careful study of the best books on the subject found throughout the civilized world, dating back to the time of Columbus.
Commander Aquino’s tables have been in practical use in our service since their publication about 1908. I believe they were first used by Rear Admiral Marvell on the midshipmen’s practice cruise in 1910, and he found them so satisfactory that he recommended them highly as indicated by his comments published in the Naval Institute Proceedings in 1913, quoted below:
“The method of Aquino shown is in the writer’s opinion the best of any that have been published.”
Two other senior officers commented favorably on them in the discussions of the Institute at that time.
“The ‘Newest’ Navigation Altitude and Azimuth Tables by Lieutenant (now Commander) Aquino of the Brazilian Navy are all that the author claims for them ‘The Simplest and Readiest in Solution.’
“I have been using Aquino’s tables for some time and I have found them sufficiently accurate for all practical purposes and preferable to all other methods for the following reasons:
“1. The chances of error are very small.
“2. The facility of solution.
“3. The easiness with which error may be detected.”
Rear Admiral C. C. Bloch, U.S.N.
“Those navigators with whom I am acquainted and who have used Radler de Aquino’s method are greatly in favor of it and work all their lines of position by the use of his tables.”
Captain W. R. Gherardi, U.S.N.
Since then many navigators in the naval service have used them; always, as far as I have been able to ascertain, with the greatest satisfaction. In fact they are now in use or have been for the past two years by the navigator of the flagship of the scouting fleet who speaks very highly of them. I have used them myself for the past twelve years with excellent results and have compared them wherever possible with other methods. I thoroughly agree with Admiral Bloch in his comments and feel that the time has come not only to recommend them in the highest terms to the service at large, but even to recommend that they be included in the course of study at the Naval Academy.
The mathematical time comparison of this type of solution with others shows the following results:
Tables | Books | Figures | Openings |
| Time |
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Aquino | 2 | 216 | 6 | 6 | minutes. |
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H.O. 203-204 | 3 | 241 | 4 | 6 | minutes. |
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*H.O. 201 | 2 | 234 | 4 | 6 | minutes. |
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Versine | 4 | 253 | 11 | 7 | minutes. |
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Cosine Haversine | 4 | 388 | 11 | 9.5 | minutes. |
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Time Sight | 4 | 385 | 8 | 15.5 | minutes. |
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Martelli | 4 | 244 | 9 | 8.5 | minutes. |
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♦limited to 240 same | or contrary declination. |
The books indicated above are:
- The Nautical Almanac.
- The Tables used.
- The Azimuth Tables O-23.
- The Azimuth Tables 23-45.
The above table indicates that Aquino’s system is just as short as any other. In addition it enables the navigator to use one standard method for all solutions except the one on the meridian. The advantage of this can only be fully realized by navigators who have had much of this work to do. Also it is a method which lends itself readily to an accurate solution under the usual conditions of work in the chart house at sea while a continuous extraneous conversation is being carried on, a feature which must be experienced to be fully appreciated.
In view of the recent caution against the use of H.O. 203 within an hour of meridian a careful test has just been carried out at the Naval Academy which shows that Aquino’s tables are thoroughly reliable for solutions right up to meridian and are not subject to the same difficulty. Also, in view of the possible error in the “reduction to meridian method” it is believed that Aquino should be used in place of that time honored system.
The writer, who has had considerable radio experience, believed at one time that directional radio would eventually supplant celo-navigation but the difficulties involved seem to indicate that it will be at least another generation before such a development can become general and it is therefore certain that we will for many years, be dependent on the ability of trained navigators to conduct ships and aircraft safely on long voyages. This being the case, it seems vitally necessary that we should strive continually to improve our methods. Accuracy comes more readily with ease of solution and the present tendency to avoid the useless detour through logarithms and out again is clearly shown in the modern navigational tables published in many countries. Not only have our own tables H.O. 203 and 204 come out in recent years but the Japanese and Portugese have also just gotten out tables of this type in addition to the many others published during the last century, such as Ball’s.
It is to be hoped that this article will stimulate discussion of the various methods available and lead more of our navigators to adopt Aquino’s method which I firmly believe to be as the author claims “the simplest and readiest in solution.”
Rear Admiral Robley Dunglison Evans, U. S. N.
(See page 2197, November, 1926, Proceedings)
Captain H. A. Baldridge, U.S. Navy.— The editor was a midshipman on his two- year cruise, serving in the U.S.S. Kentucky in 1902-04 when Admiral Evans was flying his flag as commander-in-chief of the Asiatic fleet. When the junior officers’ mess paid its first official call on Admiral Evans, the latter told us the following interesting story. The Editor re-told the story, and it was first published in The Trident in October, 1925:
The German Prince and the Torchlight Procession.
[As told at a dinner upon the close of the first aviation course at Annapolis.]
You remember back during the Spanish War the way that German Admiral tried to bluff Dewey after the battle of Manila Bay? He didn’t get away with it, of course, but his actions did arouse considerable hostile sentiment among the American public. This was not pleasing to Kaiser Wilhelm. So, a couple of years later, in 1901, he sent his brother. Prince Henry of Prussia, over to America on a little friendly call to attempt to smooth down our ruffled feathers. So there was a big how-de-do among the diplomats and the German-Americans. In charge of the Prince’s tour was Admiral Evans—“Fighting Bob”, you know, of the old Iowa. One evening, as the party’s special train drew near the state of Kentucky, Admiral Evans received a telegram from the citizens of Bowling Green, requesting that the train stop for a moment the next day in order that the city might have the honor of presenting His Highness with a token of esteem. So Evans approached the Prince on the subject.
“If your mission is to be a success, Your Highness, you must surely stop at Bowling Green. These are a very wild and interesting people. With wars and feuds, scarce a man reaches maturity unscarred. You will look about and see this man with but one eye, and that man with his ear chewed off by bullets, and another man with but one arm and one leg. And this country is noted for its beautiful women, its splendid horses, and its magnificent liquor; their’s will surely be a handsome token. Oh, by all means, stop at Bowling Green.”
So the Prince decided to stop at Bowling Green. And about noon of the next day he stepped out on the rear platform to receive the citizens and their token of esteem. Three men, each bearing a large jug, stepped forward. And sure enough, the first man had but one eye, and the ears of the second had been literally chewed off by bullets, and the third had but one arm and one leg.
Well, Prince Henry received the three jugs with a very flowery address of thanks and the train pulled out amidst cheers and the rattle of squirrel guns.
The Prince had spent two weeks in the country now and was pretty well acquainted with American drinks, but the three jugs had him stumped.
“Admiral, now, how do you drink this?” “Why,” answered Evans jocularly, “you take a large tall glass and you fill it one- third full from the first jug, and the second third from the second jug, and finish it off from the third jug. It makes quite a drink, Your Highness.”
So glasses were brought and the Prince directed their fillings by his valet. First went in three broad fingers of brave old Kentucky bourbon, and on top of that went three stout fingers of ripe race rye, and to finish off that Herculean cocktail went three thick fingers of man-killing mountaineers’ applejack. Clink, clink, went the spoon and the glasses were passed. “Skoal,” or “Der Tag,” or words to that effect, cried Prince Henry and took a mighty quaff of that mighty drink. You’ve got to give the German credit for being a real man when it came to hard liquor; half of that huge glass he killed before he brought it down from his lips. But when he did there was a look in his eye which was quite as hot as his throat must have been, which certainly was something more than tepid.
"And what,” said Prince Henry of Prussia, “Just what do you call that drink?” “That ....,” Evans paused, “why—a that—why that’s what we call a Torchlight Procession!”
Rear Admiral Robley Dunglison Evans, U. S. N.
(See page 3197, November, 1926, Proceedings)
John H. Lloyd.—I have read with a great deal of interest in the current issue of the Proceedings, the “Appreciation” on the life and doings of Rear Admiral R. D. Evans. Many of the doings of “Fighting Bob” that are part of our glorious old naval traditions, were not mentioned. One of the many reasons why “Jimpsey” was so admired by the British was due to the manner in which he handled the old Saratoga in a heavy sea, and a strong wind conning his old ship into her anchorage in the harbor of Portsmouth; the assembled British channel fleet that had gone in to anchor at that port was a witness to his fine feat of seamanship in bringing in his ship under canvas.
I was a member of that crew, and I was also a member of the crew of the Yorktown, when commanded by that fine type of our old sea warriors, many incidents could be related of his doings, his works, his interest in the old flat-foot on that tin pot of a gunboat.
Some time ago I was requested to write a summary of the cruise of the old Trenton, her last cruise which ended on the coral reefs of Apia harbor. In so doing I made many references to these old sea dogs, these old wooden walls that have kept aloft those old traditions, and to “Fighting Bob.” One that is amusing was when he was in command of the old New York at Keil, when he informed old Cassidy, the ship’s armorer, that he must address Emperor Wilhelm as “Your Majesty” and not “Yes, Kaiser.” Afterwards, old man Cassidy, the flat-foot, received an Emperor’s salute from his ship the New York. He had been found drunk ashore on the Emperor’s dock, and King Billy had Prince Henry see that old Cassidy was placed aboard his ship. Prince Henry carried out the Kaiser’s command by taking Cassidy aboard in the Emperor’s barge, with the Emperor’s pennant flying in the bow.