I found an interesting article in the latest Flying magazine (May 2011) about magnetic north moving. While certainly not a critical event to most of us, I found it interesting that magnetic north continuously moves.Most surprising was the rate of movement, 40 miles per year.
Other than a tongue-in -cheek comment in my Discernment class about the author of the Scared Compass’reference to one’s moral compass always pointing north,
I hadn’t thought too much about north. What impact does the movement have on you? I guess it depends on who you believe. As a pilot I know the runways are numbered by their alignment with a compass heading, and you usually want to check you compass when lining up with a runway to make sure you have the correct runway and that you have your heading indicator reset to north. In one case in Tampa they actually renumbered their runways;non-impacting for most of us.
In another article about The role of Earth's magnetic field, things seem a little more dire.Apparently the earth’s poles flip every few thousand years and in between the strength of the fields can become weak,allowing dangerous rays to reach the earth; in this case possibly killing birds in Arkansas. Could humans be next? Not wanting to get on the conspiracy band wagon, I will leave that subject as an exercise for the reader as I contemplate the compass, heading indicator, and GPS as I take off on my next flight, holding my breath the poles don’t swap mid flight.
3 comments:
Interesting article. I too am a pilot and have wondered about the instruments in the airplane. I am fortunate, or unfortunate, to fly a glass panel. I have more GPS information than you can shake a stick at. I am not sure that the poles shifing will impact this type of instrumentatoin, but you never know what other implications it may have.
No one can really tell you how the poles shifting will impact the earth. People can speculate all they want but its all just theories.
I am neither a pilot nor sophisticated enough to even attempt to address the issue of the magnetic field or the something like the O zone or natural resources. I do know that, if our government leaders don’t interfering with the others agenda's, our country is going to fail before either the o zone or magnetic field even come close to affecting our way of life. “Our own leaders will fail this country before Mother Nature does (Al Torrez, June 6, 2011)!”
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