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Re: spherical geometry

Hugh Haskell wrote:
I don't think that ships or aircraft would be interested
in a single heading to follow for an extended trip

Quite right.

Things may have changed dramatically with the advent of GPS

Actually they changed long before that. If you know the
lat/lon of the origin and destination, you can write a
computer program that prints out the route, with waypoints
and headings at points every N miles along the route.

For that matter, nobody wants to navigate a great-circle route
exactly anyway. You take that as a rough basis, and then
fudge it left or right to pick up more-favorable winds, avoid
nasty weather, et cetera.