llh@midacs.UUCP (Linn Hower) (08/24/85)
I now have an oportunity to get some right seat time in a Cessna Conquest. I was amaised to find out how dumb the expensive RNAV computer was that is on board. It does'nt do any great circle calculations, just straight from waypoint to waypoint. Does anyone have any software (for un*x or hp 11c calculator) that will allow me to do something like the following: give starting lat/long give destination lat/long give number of waypoints to plot along the great circle route get lat/long for waypoints 1 to n With the lat/long of the waypoints I could program the RNAV to approximate this great circle route. If not code, do you have any pointers to the algorithms??? -- Linn Hower Phone: 208-526-9353 ...!ucbvax!ucdavis!midacs!isew02!linn
notes@harpo.UUCP (08/26/85)
The HP-25 Applications Programs Book has what you want for taking a great circle course and breaking it into several rhumbline courses. Irv McNair ATT BEll Labs Whippany
ron@brl-tgr.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) (09/03/85)
> > I now have an oportunity to get some right seat time in a Cessna > Conquest. I was amaised to find out how dumb the expensive RNAV > computer was that is on board. It does'nt do any great circle calculations, > just straight from waypoint to waypoint. > I once wrote a program to aid a friend in the charter business that estimates the air distance betweeen two lat/long pairs. I don't have the program, I loaded it into a TRASH-80 pocket computer which I don't know where it is anymore. If you are going to do this yourself, look up the "Spherical Law of Cosines." It's the heart of all these calculations.