Talk:Piloting

History section
The history section needs serious help. It's mostly unsourced, and gives times in reference to a specific religion's scriptures (e.g. "biblical times" "early Christian times"). David 17:07, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

History
I agree with David about the history section. There are various examples of improper grammer throughout the section. I would suggest a complete re-write, or removal of the history portion of the article.

Pilotage => Piloting
Bowditch calls "pilotage" an informal term for "piloting". See. So does:. I suggest changing the title of the article to "Piloting". User:HopsonRoad 02:35, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
 * What do you think about the preferred term, piloting versus pilotage? These two sources use piloting in chapter headings. Is there a different preferred term in British usage? User:HopsonRoad 03:03, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't know about UK usage -- US Navy usage is piloting, as in "piloting watch." NE Ent 08:59, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

The International Maritime Organization uses "pilotage" in the sense of a service provided by maritime pilots. User:HopsonRoad 12:47, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
 * NASA uses "pilotage" as "A method of navigation in which the pilot, flying at low altitudes, uses visual references and compares symbols on aeronautical charts with surface features on the ground in order to navigate." User:HopsonRoad 12:50, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
 * On land, the term "land navigation" incorporates the use of bearing from compasses etc. e.g. User:HopsonRoad 16:02, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

✅I have renamed this article, because of how the chips fell in researching the above terminology and the absence of further discussion. User:HopsonRoad 20:09, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Merger proposal
Navigational transit and Leading line are stub articles that are aspects of piloting. I recommend that their content be brought here and be redirected from their current titles to here. User:HopsonRoad 03:00, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Personally, I'd lean more to merging those two into one, but merging them here makes just as much sense. NE Ent 21:02, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I feel that the two topics aren't notable enough to be expanded much beyond a stub. That's why I recommend the merger, here. We'll wait to see if anyone else weighs in. User:HopsonRoad 02:55, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

✅I have redirected the two articles to pertinent sections in this article and have commented out the previous text to allow easy recapture of anything that's missing. User:HopsonRoad 01:03, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

American terminology
Re -- it's called a range, not a range axis. NE Ent 20:31, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this observation, NE Ent. I call your attention to P. 26 of the "USCG Auxiliary National Short Range Aids to Navigation Training Guide" (a reference at the point in question). It says, "Ranges are an aligned pair of beacons placed to define a line down the center of a navigable channel." It further refers to that line as a "range axis" in the bullet on cross-track factor. Perhaps you have a USN source that contradicts this, but at least this source distinguishes between the pair of beacons, the range, and the line they form, the range axis. Sincerely, User:HopsonRoad 22:04, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Piloting references
As in references used by mariners for piloting. You could mention the series of books published for mariners providing detailed descriptions of the navigational marks and landmarks of a region, titled "(placemane) pilot", eg Channel pilot, Red Sea pilot etc. Also mention channel markers and buoyage, as marks specifically deployed for pilotage. Cheers, &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 05:33, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this suggestion, Peter (Southwood). Nominally, the channel markers and buoys are already covered in the term, Sea mark. The idea of having the pilot series of references is a good one that I will look into. Cheers, User:HopsonRoad 12:45, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

✅ See Piloting (navigation). Thanks for the idea! Cheers, User:HopsonRoad 13:31, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified (January 2018)
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Requested move 4 December 2018

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

Moved. See agreement below to drop the qualifier. Kudos to editors for your input, and Happy Publishing! (nac by page mover)  Paine Ellsworth , ed. put'r there 21:57, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Piloting (navigation) → Piloting – The current situation for this page is incorrect; the unparenthesised page, Piloting, is a redirect to this page. I can envisage 3 possible scenarios to fix this issue, I believe a discussion is warranted to determine the best course. The options I can see are:
 * Piloting (navigation) is the primary topic. Move it to Piloting per this request with a hatnote linking to Pilot (disambiguation) (I already placed the hatnote). Although this requires an administrator, I think this is the most straightforward course and effectively maintains the status quo. It does rely on this page being the primary topic, hence the move request to discuss this.
 * Another article is the primary topic for "Piloting". I don't see this being the case, but if so we need to modify Piloting to point there and place a hatnote there.
 * There is no primary topic. In this case Piloting should be a disambiguation page or a link to one. We need to decide whether having a separate disambiguation page or whether simply reverting the link to Pilot is the correct action MegaSloth (talk) 09:22, 4 December 2018 (UTC) --Relisted. –Ammarpad (talk) 21:19, 11 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Support per WP:GERUND and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. -- Netoholic @ 03:39, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Support per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Some attention should be directed to Land navigation (military), which is linked to from here. Typically, piloting a vessel or an aircraft is directing it along straight-line segments between waypoints, whereas land navigation may constitute constant change of course around objects. Also, land navigation is not solely a military pursuit..HopsonRoad (talk) 00:20, 18 December 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Leading lines
Navigational transit and Leading line were redirected here a few years ago after the discussion above. They were stub articles, but a reason to merge them was also "I feel that the two topics aren't notable enough to be expanded much beyond a stub."

I think the topics are indeed notable. The former is a fundamental method in navigation. Day marks and leading lights for the latter are among the main aids to navigation in the Finnish archipelagos (and also used to mark underwater cables and the correct position of floating sea marks).

The two stubs could be merged one with another (at least until better developed), but now five paragraphs of the two articles have been reduced to an image and caption in Points of reference (with no mention in the accompanying list), a discussion in Fix of position (with no mention of purpose-made leading lines) and the one-paragraph section "In channels and rivers" last in the article (does "channels" cover harbour entrances and fairways through archipelagos?). Built leading lines are not even mentioned in Points of reference.

–LPfi (talk) 13:38, 9 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Thank you for writing, LPfi. "Leading line" appears to always have been a DAB page. So, it appears that you feel there is more to be said about "navigational transit", which currently redirects back to this article at "In channels and rivers". The original material is visible with this edit. Is there a reason not to expand the "In channels and rivers" section here, until the material is so extensive that it clearly warrants an article unto itself? Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 22:24, 9 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the answer. No, it is Leading lines (plural) that is a DAB. Leading line (singular) never was: last non-redirect version – but the search box doesn't work well for redirects. So I mean both. The images at navigational transit are about leading lines, but otherwise they don't overlap very much.


 * The old content could be merged into this article (why wasn't it?), but it is difficult as there are no appropriate sections. Leading lines and navigational transits are not used just in channels and rivers, but anywhere in sight of land. The sections on points of reference and on fixes would need to be rewritten, so expanding the separate articles to something a little more viable would be about as easy, I think.


 * Making the effort here, soon to see they have to be moved out and reworked again would be frustrating, and separate articles give more freedom for expanding the articles, here one has to mind the context of this article.


 * –LPfi (talk) 23:04, 9 March 2021 (UTC)


 * LPfi, how about bringing a few references here that could guide us on how to proceed. Alternatively, you are welcome to be WP:BOLD and develop content in the articles that currently direct here, or a new one as you see fit. Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 03:14, 10 March 2021 (UTC)


 * OK. I'll see what I can do. I don't have good sources at hand, so it will be a bigger project. If somebody else can do something about it, I'll be glad. –LPfi (talk) 09:50, 10 March 2021 (UTC)