The real size of the African Continent

[GreenStormCloud]

25. I learned navigation before GPS and computers.

Back then I learned that the Mercator projection was the ONLY projection that allowed one to draw a rhumb line on it. A rhumb line connects any two points with a straight line path that has the same true compass bearing at all points. It is next to impossible, without GPS & computers, to steer a great circle (shortest distance) route as the compass bearing is constantly changing. So the navigator will plot several points of the great circle route on a mercator projection, draw rhumb lines connecting the points, and then tell the pilot or helmsman to steer a particular compass heading until a certain time or place, the make a course change to the new heading. Such a course is a little bit longer, but much easier to steer.

For hundreds of years navigators demanded mercator maps, so they became the standard that everybody used.

That is why the Mercator projection became so popular.

When navigating in the arctic regions, the advantages of the mercator loose ground to the disadvantages and one has to switch to a different method.