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 == Intended Route == 

 Not having done much editing, I'd like to run this up the flagpole before changing the description of the route: 

  

 Based on the Navy report excerptat the Ibiblio site, my ideas are 1) change ""almost due east"" to ""course 091 degrees true"", 2) change ""back to NAS"" to ""then returning to NAS"", 3) recompute all the km values on the assumption that the mileages in the Navy report are nautical miles, not statute miles. 

 The subtle rewording in #2 is because I've discovered that the route, as given in the Navy report, does not form a closed figure. It fails to close by 10.6 nautical miles, or 3.4% of the total distance. However, on careful reading the report doesn't actually say the last leg takes you back to the field. I believe the article should should be equally ambiguous. 

 Why plan a route which intentionally misses the destination? It's an old navigation trick for making landfall. If you aim right at the field, you're not sure which way to turn if it's not in sight upon reaching the Florida coast. But if you aim to definitely miss to the south, all you have to do is hit the coast and follow it north. 

 Incidentally, it was my attempts to re-fly the route in Microsoft Flight Simulator that revealed the misclosure. No matter what pains I took, such as using the autopilot, and even allowing for the turn radius of the plane, I kept missing the field by miles. At first I thought the sim was inaccurate. Then I did the math, which agreed with the sim! Paul S. Hirose "