A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: David C
Date: 2017 Feb 18, 17:17 -0800
I can’t remember hearing the term terrestrial navigation before, certainly not in the context that it would warrant capital letters to describe it as something special like Air Navigation for example. I wonder if this is because the term wasn’t really required in the past. For years people were perfectly happy with Navigation and Pilotage. Air Navigation on the other hand was sufficiently new and different to warrant its own name. I have a row of books on my bookshelves written in the 20s and 30s by several different authors all with the title ‘Air Navigation’.
The meaning of terrestrial quoted by Frank does not seem logical to me. For what it is worth (as an armchair navigator writing off the top of my head, without consulting any books) this is my interpretation:
- Air Navigation - used on machines flying through the air.
- Marine Navigation - used on ships sailing the seven seas.
- Terrestrial Navigation - used by someone walking, cycling, driving on terra firma.
Terrestrial Navigation could include GNSS, map and compass, reading street signs, Bumsteed Sun Compass, celestial, following a river to the sea, paying attention to surrounding hills (relevant where I live), following the coloured line in a hospital to get to the correct department etc.
I will not go into details for Air and Marine Navigation as I am sure you can fill in the details (-;