Originally Posted by
selfin
Paco,
Thanks for the heads up on the path being a pursuit curve. The derivation from first principles in terms of groundspeed coordinates was not going well!
The solution in airspeed coordinates appears to be given on the Wikipedia page for a radiodrome
here, pushing the date back to at least the 1730s.
Ahah, it's look like i've found someone more mathematical than me !
You're seriously interested in coming up with an equation to describe this kind of curve ?
I'm sure you would be familiar with the brachistochrone curve as well ?
You sound like some of my colleagues in higher education who went on to become math researchers.