CHARTING THE OCEANS FOR SAFE NAVIGATION 61 



introductory catalogs, which index and give essential information 

 on the products available. 



AERONAUTICAL CHARTING 



Since the beginning of Naval aviation, the Navy has had the 

 responsibility for meeting the operational navigational charting 

 needs of Naval aviators. This responsibility is fulfilled by pro- 

 ducing aeronautical charts, furnishing flight information and air 

 intelligence data, and providing special services necessary to 

 support U. S. Naval air activities. 



As early as 1918 the Naval Oceanographic Office produced a 

 series of "Naval Operating Charts" designed for use by aircraft 

 and airships patrolling maritime airspace to protect shipping from 

 possible raids of hostile submarines. As a result of the introduc- 

 tion of new navigation and tracking devices for antisubmarine 

 warfare operations, more sophisticated cartographic products 

 have been developed. For example, the automatic Dead Reckoning 

 Tracing system used on certain types of Navy aircraft generated 

 the development and production of special charts designed for use 

 in conjunction with this equipment. Approximately 125 of these 

 special charts have already been produced, and additional coverage 

 is planned to provide for future needs. 



Aeronautical navigation charts evolved from early requests for 

 special charts to support such special Navy missions as the first 

 trans- Atlantic flight in May 1919 by Lieutenant Commander 

 Albert C. Read in the flying boat NC-4 and the MacMillan-Byrd 

 expedition to the Arctic in 1925. To satisfy the continuing 

 operational need for air navigation charts on medium and long- 

 range oceanic flights, the Navy developed several series of 

 aeronautical charts. An example is the V30 air navigation chart 

 series first designed and produced in 1942 to provide world cov- 

 erage of aeronautical plotting charts for Naval air operations in 

 both theaters of the war. This series today consists of 104 charts, 

 which are designed for plotting to an accuracy of one nautical 

 mile and for rapid computation of courses and distances. They 

 are constructed on the Mercator projection at a scale of 30 

 nautical miles to the inch (at the mid-latitude of each chart). 

 This series has been redesigned to meet the needs of modern air- 



