These are your fundamental reference lines — Page 575, Lesson 578

This is the index of the book — the map of everything we're going to cover in General Navigation. Let me walk you through what's here, because this tells you exactly what a professional pilot needs to master. Starting with the Earth itself — you'll see The Equator, The Meridians, and The Prime (or Greenwich) Meridian all on page 8. These are your fundamental reference lines. The Equator is the great circle halfway between the poles; meridians are the lines of longitude running pole to pole; and the Prime Meridian at Greenwich is your zero reference for longitude. Then you have the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn on page 11 — those are the latitudes where the sun is directly overhead at the solstices. And True Altitude appears on page 11 too — that's your actual height above mean sea level. On page 3 you have World Geodetic System 1984 (WGS 84) — that's the standard coordinate system used for GPS and global navigation. It defines the Earth's shape and is the reference frame for all modern position fixing. Now, direction and magnetism. True Direction on page 5 is direction measured relative to true north. Then Variation on pages 46 and 62 — that's the angular difference between true north and magnetic north at your location. The Angle of Dip on page 62 is the vertical angle the Earth's magnetic field makes with the horizontal — important for compass accuracy. And Updating Isogonals on page 52 — isogonals are lines of equal variation, and you need to know how to update them for your charts. The Navigation Computer on page 69 — that's your manual flight computer, the CRP-5. This is where you do all your calculations. You'll see TAS and Altitude Conversions on page 105, TAS from CAS on page 107, and TAS from Mach Number on page 113. Let me explain those terms. CAS is Calibrated Airspeed — the indicated airspeed corrected for instrument and position error. TAS is True Airspeed — your actual speed through the air. Mach Number is your speed relative to the speed of sound. These conversions are how you get from what your instruments show to what's actually happening in the air. On page 88 you have Static Air Temperature (SAT), Total Air Temperature (TAT), and True Airspeed (TAS). SAT is the actual temperature of the air around you; TAT is the temperature you'd measure including the heating effect of the aircraft moving through the air — the ram rise. The difference between them matters for accurate TAS calculation. Then Volume Conversions on page 93 and Volume to Weight on page 94 — fuel calculations. You need to convert between volume and weight because fuel is measured in different ways depending on the context. Now the wind section. Wind Vector on page 127 and the Triangle of Velocities on page 127 — this is the core of navigation. Your track, your heading, your true airspeed, your wind — they all form a triangle. Wind Correction Angle (WCA) on page 125 is the angle you must steer into the wind to maintain your desired track. Starboard on page 125 — that's the right side of the aircraft. Wind Finding on page 158 is how you determine the wind from your actual drift. Two-drift Winds on page 172 — a technique using two drift measurements. Wind Components on page 175 and Tailwind Components on page 181 — breaking the wind into headwind/tailwind and crosswind components for performance calculations. On page 199 you have Track Made Good — your actual path over the ground — and Track Error Angle on pages 199 and 202 — the angular difference between where you intended to go and where you actually went. That's how you correct your course. Now the time section. Time on page 379, Zenith on page 383 — the point directly overhead. Transit on page 386 — when a celestial body crosses your meridian. Zone Time (ZT) on page 398 — the standard time in a time zone. Summer Time/daylight Saving Time (DST) on page 402 — the seasonal clock adjustment. Sunrise and Sunset on page 421, and Twilight on page 424 — the periods of partial illumination. These matter for planning, especially for night operations. Then the gyro and compass work. Steering by Compass on page 462 and Steering by Gyro on page 464 — two ways to maintain direction. Transport Wander on page 465 — a gyro error caused by the Earth's rotation as you move over its surface. The 'Cocked Hat' on page 483 — that's the triangle formed when three position lines don't meet at a single point. It tells you about your position uncertainty. And the VOR section. VOR Radial on page 478 — the magnetic bearing from the station. VOR QDM on page 478 — the magnetic bearing to the station. VOR Crosstrack on page 214 — your lateral displacement from the desired radial. Finally, Summary of Lambert Properties on page 347 — the Lambert conformal conic projection, which is the chart projection used for navigation. So this index is your roadmap. Every one of these topics — from the Earth's reference lines, through the navigation computer calculations, wind triangles, time, gyros, and VOR — is a skill you'll use on every flight. This is the complete professional navigation syllabus.