Hidden away in an obscure circular that appears to have been released in early 2014 by Gander Control is notice that a group of waypoints know as the “fish points” are to be deleted:
I’ve been puzzling over how aeronautical navigation waypoints get their names; it would appear, if this retirement of the “fish points” is a guide, that that are simply made up, using some sort of arbitrary theme, while ensuring that they don’t sound like other waypoint names, something reinforced in this Nav Canada circular on the same topic that reads, in part “New names to de-conflict with other similar sounding fixes on the NAT” (NAT being “North Atlantic Tracks”).
The challenge now is to connect the waypoint codes with their associated fish species. Some, like SCROD, and OYSTR and CARPE are obvious. Others, I have no idea.
Thoughts?
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Comments
What are you asking for,
What are you asking for, Peter? Connect how?
Connect like “how does a real
Connect like “how does a real world species of fish connect with those 5-letter codes?”
Well, I suppose the theme of
Well, I suppose the theme of fish may include a wider range of things than just the names of fish species. "Steam" obviously is a way to cook fish. But really if "fish" is the theme, I agree it's pretty cryptic, and suspiciously so. (Maybe it's not suspicious, though, since I can see "HALBT" for halibut would look and sound too much like "Haliburton," "BISQE" reminds me of "Biscayne Bay" and "TROUT" of "Troutdale" [we have one near Portland, OR, and there are bound to be others]. It may be that if the name of a fish or even a fish dish is familiar, it's likely to have a place or a river named after it.] Anyway, besides "STEAM" I'm coming up empty. Could there be any fishing argot in there?
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