plane sailing

From here it should all be plane sailing and a following wind."

The expression "plane sailing" has, by analogy, taken on a more general meaning of any activity that is relatively straightforward.

Plane sailing is a form of navigation that assumes that the area being navigated is flat.

Plane sailing (also spelled plain sailing) is an approximate method of navigation over small ranges of latitude and longitude.

In the work, Hues also published for the first time the six fundamental navigational propositions involved in solving what was later termed the "nautical triangle" used for plane sailing.

Cotter, C.H. (1978) "Early tabular, graphical and instrumental, methods for solving problems of plane sailing", Revista da Universidade de Coimbra, Vol.

Plane sailing is based on the assumption that the meridian through the point of departure, the parallel through the destination, and the course line form a right triangle in a plane, called the "plane sailing triangle".

In navigation, he was expected to be able to keep a reckoning of the ship's way by plane sailing, to use Mercator projection maps and observation of the sun and stars to determine the course and position of the ship, and to understand the variation of the compass.