Quote:
Originally Posted by MikkOwl
Isn't it possible to just do triangulation from a single beacon to know one's position? Taking two measurements from the same beacon at an interval instead of using the bearing from two different beacons.
1. Fly a steady heading
2. Measure bearing to beacon
3. Take that bearing minus 180 degrees, and draw a line on the map from the beacon outwards.
4. Fly for a determined while longer (maybe 3 minutes and 15 seconds - knowing exactly how far we have traveled in our straight line).
5. Repeat steps 2 and 3.
6. We now know three angles (all). First is our heading and the bearing to the beacon at the time of measurement one. Second is the same but at measurement two. Third is the two different bearings from the beacon to our positions of the two measurements. And we also know the length of one side of the triangle - our own distance traveled between measurement one and two.
http://www.mathsisfun.com/algebra/tr...triangles.html
We can use the law of sines to find out the lengths (distance) between our aircraft and the beacon at measurement one and two), which are the two missing sides of the triangle.
When those are revealed, we have our triangle drawn on the map, showing our distance from the beacon at the two measurements and the path our aircraft flew. |
What your suggesting is not "triangulation". You still don't know the distance you are from the beacon. Also even though you have your airspeed with dymamic weather modling you don't know your ground speed (or as AshesHouse has pointed out) any effects of drift. To determine that you'ld probably have to use visual reference to land marks (unless you have a Nordon bomb site of course) in which case your using good old map and compas and dead reconing to determine your location.
If you have visual references you'ld be quicker ploting your bearing from the NDB onto your map and looking for landmarks along that line.
Using dead reconing you should have some idea where abouts ont the map you are (unless you get caught up in a furball and get completely lost.
Of course you could always get your longitude using your aviation sextant and see where that intersects your bearing from the NDB. Though it depends how accurate you want to be.
Cheers