Navigation
Finding your way
Navigation questions combine chart work, dead reckoning, radio navigation and flight planning. Know the Earth's coordinate system, magnetic variation and deviation, and the relationship between true, magnetic and compass headings. Understand the triangle of velocities: true airspeed, wind velocity and track/groundspeed. Plotting and measuring on a chart demands care with scale and units.
Radio navigation: know VOR (radials, course deviation), NDB/ADF (relative bearing, homing versus tracking), DME (slant range), ILS (localiser and glideslope) and GNSS basics. Understand the difference between homing (flying toward the station, wind causes drift) and tracking (maintaining a desired course).
Traps: confusing variation (chart, geographic) with deviation (compass, aircraft); sign errors when converting true to magnetic; treating DME slant range as ground distance (error is small at distance, large overhead); and forgetting wind when computing heading versus track.
Worked example
True track 090°, variation 5° west, deviation 2° east. Magnetic track = true + west variation = 095°. Compass = magnetic − east deviation = 093°. Always apply variation before deviation, and check the sign conventions carefully.