Countries generally to the east of the Greenwich meridian — Page 402, Lesson 358

Let’s start with the big picture. The Air Almanac extract you’ll use in the exam is organised into three lists of countries, and the whole thing is built around one idea: how far each country’s Standard Time is from UTC, the Co-ordinated Universal Time. List 1 covers countries generally to the east of the Greenwich meridian. List 2 covers countries close to or on the Greenwich meridian. List 3 covers countries generally to the west of the Greenwich meridian. So the lists are arranged by longitude — east, on the meridian, west. Now, a crucial exam note. The Air Almanac extract issued for exam purposes is a copy from a 1992 Air Almanac. That means country names — for example USSR — may have changed, and the corrections may also have changed. But for exam purposes, the extract should be treated as valid. So don’t worry about modern names; use what’s printed. Let’s focus on List 1, pages 1 and 2. It gives Standard Time Corrections for countries mainly east of Greenwich. Because they’re east, their Standard Time will be ‘fast’ on UTC — that is, Standard Time is later than UTC time. Think of it this way: the Sun rises earlier in the east, so their clocks run ahead. The note under the title shows how to apply the corrections. Time corrections given should be added to UTC to give Standard Time, or subtracted from Standard Time to give UTC. So if you know UTC and want Standard Time, you add the correction. If you know Standard Time and want UTC, you subtract it. One more thing about List 1. Countries with a large east–west extent may be subdivided. So Standard Time corrections for Australia change depending on the state involved. EASA questions about countries like Australia will specify the state involved. Similarly, the USSR is divided by states, and EASA time questions involving the USSR will give the state of the place concerned. So you always need to know which state you’re dealing with before you pick the correction. That’s the structure: three lists by longitude, corrections applied by adding to UTC or subtracting from Standard Time, and for large countries, the state matters.