LT COL NOEL ELLIS
23/VII/2025
At last, there is a rain free
window. Though it has been cloudy and threatens to drizzle but the sun forces
its way through to brighten up the damp and dusky day. Last ten days, the
clouds have been dominating the scene playing hide and seek with the sun.
This has given me an opportunity
to spend some time with my camera on the roof. The water plants just need an
inspection, the rest of the time is available to scan the skies and say hello
to my ‘avian’ friends, who after a hard days work are in a hurry to head home
and roost.
The birds in the garden are
already home as they stay within the colony. But the water birds like the Ibis’,
pond herons, egrets and cormorants have a long way to go. Some of them fly in a
flock, some fly individually. Home sweet home is on their mind.
Aeroplanes fly at a particular
bearing and height as laid down in their flight path. Similarly, these birds
too must be following such norms. Airline planes have CPs check points. They
have to contact designated CPs while on flight. How would the birds be doing it,
intrigues me?
In the sea there are SLOCs or Sea
Lines of Communication. Lanes are designated for international travel. They
follow international protocols of the sea while traversing the oceans. Things
are quite sorted out.
With the GPS system available on
their consoles, aircrafts and ships know where they are going. They not only
monitor their own position themselves but are guided by so many earth stations
and satellites, that it is very difficult for them to go wrong, unless factors
like very bad weather/war/other natural calamities force the planes and ships
to navigate manually.
I recall, when we used to
navigate on something called the Tank Navigation Apparatus or TNA-3 mounted on
the BRDMs which were part of our equipment while in the Army. Those vehicles
and its navigation system have been phased out and much better systems are in
place presently.
What I wanted to highlight is
that BRDM was a Russian wheeled vehicle. One had to calculate something called
the “alpha angle” by placing the vehicle in the North East direction and then
fill in the coordinates in the system.
It was a cumbersome process, but
very accurate, only if the initial data was filled in correctly. One could take
detours and it could calculate the deviation. When we used to reach our
destination, the coordinates used to read 000-000. One used to pop out of the
cupola and check. 99.9% of the times you were within meters of your
destination.
Russians did not use ‘degrees’.
They used to measure angles in “Mils” or milliradians. One degree equals 17.78
mils. It was called a unit of angular measurement. 360 degrees equals 6400
mils. Imagine, if one was further dividing a degree into so many parts, chances
of going wrong were minimal.
What do these birds use for
navigation? How do they know the precise time and direction to move? How do
they reach, where they have to with so much of accuracy.
This I can vouch when they fly
above me at the same time, at the same height and exactly at the same place
since the last few days I have tried to photograph them.
Do they identify landmarks on the
ground? Do they sense the earth’s magnetic field? How do they tell each other
where they are heading? How do they communicate amongst each other if they are
going solo? How does all this work for them? I wonder!!!!!!!
JAI HIND
©® NOEL ELLIS
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