plane sailing

American  

noun

Navigation.

1. sailing on a course plotted without reference to the curvature of the earth.

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plane sailing British  

noun

1. nautical navigation without reference to the earth's curvature Compare plain sailing

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Etymology

Origin of plane sailing

First recorded in 1690–1700

Example Sentences

Of course, it won't be altogether plane sailing.

From Project Gutenberg

V. "All is not plane sailing yet for the German in search of foreign markets."

From Project Gutenberg

It was in great use among the French navigators, from its solving the problems of plane sailing.

From Project Gutenberg

Sailing, or the sailings, is a term applied to the different ways in which the path of a ship at sea, and the variations of its geographical position, are represented on paper, all which are explained under the various heads of great circle sailing, Mercator's sailing, middle latitude sailing, oblique sailing, parallel sailing, plane sailing.

From Project Gutenberg

By this time I had ranged up abeam of the commodore, and I proposed that we should follow the river up as far as the wall again, in order to do our work honestly; but to this he objected that he had no wish to puzzle himself with spherical trigonometry; that plane sailing was his humour at the moment; and that he had, moreover, just discovered that one of his boots pinched his foot.

From Project Gutenberg