Friday, November 16, 2012

Hello again ... Basic Navigation This Time


Bismillah,

*Fiuuuh ... fiuuuh* I feel like my blog is quite dusty after so long. Well, here I go again blogging. First of all Alhamdulillah I am now pursuing my Ph.D in Aeronautical Engineering qualifying in Flight Navigation System. Well to tell the truth, it isn't an easy task after all and besides Flight Navigation itself is one of the topics in AE which is quite challenging, why? 

Here's why ...

Now imagine yourself being at a location unbeknown to you at all. You have no idea where you are nor where to go. The very best thing you could do is to find tactical marks such as nearby buildings, trees, landmarks, or anything familiar. But if you are totally lost, you might as well look at the sky for celestial marks or in other words locate yourself from known position based on stars. You see ... there's nothing in this earth unuseful, well as for this celestial marks; Allah SWT has already informed us on how celestial navigation works --but of course we have to use our brain to discover the techniques-- 

In Surah An-Nahl ayah 16:

And He created markings (navigation). And by the stars they are guided.

It is evident that Allah SWT created stars with certain shapes for us to navigate and of course to believe that He is The Almighty.

Now let's jump to basic navigation, shall we?

I've already informed you that we can use stars as a reference to locate exact position on where we are. But what I haven't told you is HOW. Okay let's imagine that we're standing on earth; regardless on where we are at this moment. Since the earth itself is a near-round shaped (or in technical language we call it ... quasi-spherical), we consider ourselves being at the center of a sphere, no ... not that we're at THE CENTER OF THE EARTH LITERALLY --because you know, when you're standing at the center of the earth with magma surrounds you ... well, you can see what I mean--

Yes, we're in a three-dimensional system or in other words we're at a spatial frame. Hence, there are three axes; X, Y, and Z. We must remember that we're inside a "sphere" therefore those three axes should be transformed into angles with respect to the center of the earth. 

Alright I'll continue later ... it's time to bring my aircraft into action i.e. flying B-)

to be continued ...

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