NavList:

George H wrote:
"Frank Reed, in trying to make the best of the disastrous performance of his
"rapid-fire fix""

I realize that I have confused you yet again, George, and I am sorry. I posted those octant sights just to provide some entertainment and interest for NavList, and I think that I succeeded in that. I added that comment "Rapid-fire fix anyone?" just to see if it would generate some discussion, and it did. OF COURSE, sights taken when the Sun has shifted only five degrees in azimuth would not yield an accurate rapid-fire fix, but they DO yield a rapid-fire fix with an associated long, thin error ellipse. Surely you understood that.

You concluded:
"When a novel procedure is dreamed up, given a catchy name-tag, and proposed for us all to use, we need to ask why no navigator has used it in the past. There's usually a good reason."

Ha! Ya see, George, you waste so much time trying to beat up my posts that you end up missing out on interesting navigational science. As a tactical matter, since you see yourself as a defender of the faith, you should know that when you pronounce so emphatically... so... so... well, many words would fit... on ANY topic, it usually helps convince me that I am on the right track and that I should post much more often about the topic in question. So be it. By the way, when I talked with George Schultz about these fixes generated by more-or-less continuous sights on a single body, I asked him if he had a name, or knew of a name, for them generally. He said no, so I've adopted the expression "rapid-fire fix". Thank you for counting it as a "catchy name-tag". That was not intentional, but it sure is good to know.

-FER

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