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Piloting

Keeping track of position relative to charted landmarks. Piloting techniques include magnetic bearings, natural ranges, various methods of finding distance off, depth sounding, and radio direction finding. Piloting should be distinguished from dead reckoning, which is navigation by instruments alone, without reference to charted landmarks.

Celestial navigators with a sextant at hand can do very accurate piloting by measuring vertical and horizontal angles between landmarks. See Sextant Piloting, Shipping Lanes.


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