Summary: 18186 LORAN-C and Application to Aviation. Loran-C, which was developed from an earlier technology known as Loran-A. The term "Loran" developed from one of many engineering projects undertaken during the second World War. Loran is an acronym for Long Range Navigation (LORAN). Originally a medium frequency (MF) radio navigation system, the system served Army Air Corps navigators crossing the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Poor coverage over land encouraged investigations into low frequency Loran (www.megapulse.com, n page). The Loran technologies are a radio navigation system that works with a series of broadcast towers set up along coast lines and all over continental areas which send signals to boats, trains, and airplanes. Those signals allow for the receiving vehicle to identify its current location, under any weather and visibility conditions, to an accuracy of 18 meters. Recently, Loran-C has been challenged by the satellite-based Global Positioning System (GPS). It is the purpose of this paper to examine the history, implementation, governance, and future of Loran-C with special focus on its application to avionics.
