navigation Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navigation, ...

, the drift of a vessel or aircraft is the difference between

heading Heading can refer to: * Heading (metalworking), a process which incorporates the extruding and upsetting processes * Headline, text at the top of a newspaper article * Heading (navigation), the direction a person or vehicle is facing, usually si ...

and its

course Course may refer to: Directions or navigation * Course (navigation), the path of travel * Course (orienteering), a series of control points visited by orienteers during a competition, marked with red/white flags in the terrain, and corresponding ...

or track, due to the motion of the underlying medium, the air or water, or other effects like skidding or slipping. it can be determined by the

wind triangle In air navigation, the wind triangle is a graphical representation of the relationship between aircraft motion and wind. It is used extensively in dead reckoning navigation. The wind triangle is a vector diagram, with three vectors. *The air ve ...

References

Navigation {{water-transport-stub