Commander Paton's paper, which was presented at an Ordinary Meeting of the Institute held in London on 13 March, discusses the implications for navigation and safety at sea of the ever intensifying search for energy resources from the sea-bed. Commander Paton, who is Chairman of IMO's working party on ships' routing, serves at the moment in the Marine Directorate of the Department of Transport. The views expressed, however, are entirely his own.

Some results are here described of research carried out in the Netherlands with regard to marine traffic problems on the Dutch part of the continental shelf with emphasis on the preliminary results of the ‘Nautical Questionnaire North Sea’.

The North Sea is a busy and interesting area, often presenting a challenge to the professional and amateur mariner, and to government bodies who have to see that people operating there do so in a responsible and safe manner. Figs 1 and 2 give an impression of the various types of activities on the Dutch continental shelf and of the collision and grounding positions of vessels in the North Sea over the period 1973–7. To reconcile the claims of all operations has become increasingly difficult as offshore activities have multiplied.

This paper was presented in an elaborated version at a seminar on Safety in European Waters and Progress in the COST-301 Project sponsored jointly by the Institute and the Nautical Institute n i London on 12 December 1984. It reports on the preliminary findings of an independent ‘pilot’ study carried out for the Commission of the European Communities on the legal implications of implementing Vessel Traffic Services (VTS) systems in Western European waters. In particular, it seeks to contribute to wider understanding of the legal position of the VTS authority with respect to the giving of information, advice or instructions to ships, and to assess the possible consequences for legal liability.

It has been recognized for some time that calculations of potential encounter rates based on the speed and lateral distributions of ships using sea routes provide only a partial estimation of the actual collision risk, as all encounters are usually given equal rating, and no attempt is made to include factors such as the degree of domain penetration or the relative speed of the ships. One possible solution to the problem consists in attempting to weight the calculated potential encounter rates according to the most relevant factors, and thus replace the calculated rates by weighted values to provide a relative estimate of collision risk. Goodwin, Lamb and Kemp reported a first attempt at such a procedure in their calculation of weighted encounter rates based on the observed traffic distributions and flow rates in the Sunk Lightship area in the neighbourhood of Harwich. A two-part index was used in the work; the first part employed a weighting factor based on the ratio of the time required for the completion of a manoeuvre involving a specified angle of course change, to the time available as measured from the ‘decision-distance’ at which the manoeuvre was deemed to commence. The second part used a factor based on the time required to pass and draw clear after completion of the manoeuvre.

The advantages of being able to process marine radar imagery in an on-line computer system have been illustrated by study of some navigational problems. The experiments suggest that accuracies of the order of 100 metres may be obtained in navigation in coastal regions using map overlays with marine radar data. A similar technique using different radar imagery of the same location suggests that the pattern-recognition technique may well yield a position-keeping ability of better than 10 metres.

This paper, which was presented at the Institute Conference on navigation equipment and training standards held in Cardiff on 2–3 April, reviews the recent creation of international safety standards for shipborne electronic navigational aids and the new institutional framework in which these are being generated at IMO, IEC and ISO. It suggests that these safety standards, where they exist, are very similar to those needed by shipowners for efficiency of shipoperation.

The paper which follows, by Moore and Page, was also presented at the Conference, an account of which appears in the Record.

By Air Traffic Management or ATM is meant the totality of the processes used, in the air and on the ground, to ensure safe and expeditious movement of all air traffic using controlled airspace. Computers are used on a large scale to support human planners in the management processes. Flight management computers in the aircraft, together with radar and flight-plan data processors on the ground, are conspicuous examples. Decision processes remain tasks for human controllers, although off-line computer models of traffic flow provide a background for the longer-term management decisions.

Since the early nineteen-seventies, when the price of fuel went up so dramatically, airlines have been seeking methods of saving fuel. Climb, cruise and descent speeds were refined to give the most economical operation. Advisory systems came on the market, but these did little more than give crews information which could be obtained from operations manuals. Then equipment such as performance management systems (PMS) and flight management systems (FMS) was produced. The potential of these systems can be measured by the number of airlines who have purchased the equipment, and also by the fact that most of the new generation of aircraft are being built with PMS as part of the standard aeroplane.

The three papers which follow were presented at a meeting sponsored jointly by the Institute with the Royal Aeronautical Society, held in London on 20 February 1985 with the President, Mr J. E. D. Williams, in the Chair. Mr Attwooll is with the Chief Scientist's Division of the Civil Aviation Authority, Captain Lister is a member of the Flight Operations Inspectorate of the same Authority and Captain Grieve is the Chief Pilot of Britannia Airways.

Several years ago, when Airbus Industrie launched their twin-engined A 300 Airbus, it became apparent that a new generation of long-range aircraft was about to add a different facet to the shape of international air travel. The enormous power available from the big fan engines coming into use meant that adequate performance was available even when an engine failure meant the loss of half the installed thrust. Coupled to this was a standard of fuel economy and tank capacity which meant that the new aircraft were capable of operating over ranges far in excess of those previously attained by twin-engined aircraft.

Britannia celebrated its 21 st anniversary in 1983. From the beginning in 1962 with three Constellations, Britannia's 1985 fleet is four Boeing 767s and 25 Boeing 737 aircraft. Britannia is now the largest independent airline in Europe in terms of passengers carried and passenger miles flown. Our present route structure, within a radius of 2500 nautical miles of London, is between some 20 UK airfields and over 70 overseas destinations. The range of the B 737 fleet extends to 1900 n.m. with full reserves and a full payload of 130 passengers. The range of our present B 767 fleet, under similar conditions, extends to 2800 n.m. with a full payload of 273 passengers. This payload—range capability is so limited by our decision to operate these aircraft for the time being with a reduced maximum gross weight. Both fleets are operated by 2-man flight deck crews.

The paper by Spencer and Blades, both of the Department of Psychology in the University of Sheffield, was presented on 14 March 1984 at an Institute meeting held in London to discuss Psychology and Navigation.

From its earliest moments, the young organism has a need to track and integrate into some scheme of knowledge the location of salient objects and places; and thence to develop navigational strategies for efficient movement through space. In the case of human young, their initially limited mobility constrains the extent of their active explorations, and thus their range of experience; and adult protectiveness (somewhat heightened in the modern, suburban nuclear family setting) continues to limit such explorations even when the child is fully capable of extensive movement round the local area (Pick and Acredolo, 1983).

A Conference sponsored by the Institute was held in Cardiff on 2–3 April 1985 to discuss current and future navigation equipment and training standards. A list of the papers presented is given below. The book of papers, entitled RIN 85, is available from the Institute office at a cost of £20 to members and £30 to non-members plus postage.

The International Association of Lighthouse Authorities held its eleventh five-yearly conference in Brighton in April 1985, attended by the lighting and buoyage authorities of some 60 countries and by observers from twelve international organizations. The International Association of Institutes of Navigation was represented by its President M. W. Richey and E. R. Hargreaves.

A seminar sponsored jointly by the Institute with the Nautical Institute was held at the City of London Polytechnic on 12 December 1984 to hear papers on the Cost 301 project. A summary of the papers appears below; the full set may be obtained at £10 from the Nautical Institute.