Let me first explain what the table actually is — Page 444, Lesson 415

I want to walk you through the sunrise table now. This is the kind of table you'll find in the Air Almanac, and it's a core navigation tool for planning when daylight will be available at your position. Let me first explain what the table actually is. It gives you the time of sunrise at various latitudes for each day of the year. The times are given in hours and minutes, and they're in UTC — Universal Time Coordinated. That's the standard time reference we use in aviation, so you don't have to worry about local time zones when you read this table. Now, look at the structure. The columns run across the top for the months — we have April and May here, and within each month the days are broken into three-day intervals: the 2nd, 5th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th, 20th, 23rd, 26th, and 29th. So if you need the sunrise time for, say, the 10th of April, you'd interpolate between the 8th and the 11th. The rows are the latitudes, running from N 72° down through N 60°, N 50°, N 20°, N 10°, the Equator at 0°, then S 10°, S 20°, and S 30°. Notice the latitudes aren't evenly spaced — they're denser at high northern latitudes and sparser near the equator. That's because the change in sunrise time is much more dramatic near the poles. Here's the key thing I want you to understand: the table is for the Northern Hemisphere spring. As you go from April into May, the days are getting longer in the north. So look at the N 60° row — on April 2nd, sunrise is at 05:24, and by May 17th it's down to 03:19. The sun is coming up earlier and earlier as spring progresses. Now watch what happens as you move south. At the Equator, 0°, sunrise is essentially constant — about 06:01 in early April and 05:53 by late May. The change is tiny, only a few minutes across the whole period. That's because at the equator, day length barely varies through the year. And here's the beautiful contrast — go into the Southern Hemisphere, and the trend reverses. At S 30°, sunrise on April 2nd is 06:11, but by the end of the table it's 06:24. The sun is rising later because it's autumn in the southern hemisphere, and the days are getting shorter. So the same table serves both hemispheres — you just read it with the correct sign of latitude. Now, there's a special notation you'll see in the high northern latitudes. Look at the N 72° row — you'll see the letter G appearing in some cells. That G stands for "sun does not rise" — the sun stays below the horizon all day. This is the polar night condition. At 72° north in late April, the sun is still rising, but as you move toward the May columns, you start seeing those G entries — the sun has stopped rising altogether because the region has entered continuous daylight or continuous darkness, depending on the season. Let me give you a concrete example of how you'd actually use this. Suppose you're planning a flight and you need to know when sunrise occurs at N 50° on April 14th. You'd go to the N 50° row, find the April column for the 14th — that's between the 11th and the 17th — and you'd read approximately 05:10. The table gives you the exact value; you interpolate for the specific day. One more critical point about reading these times. The times are in UTC, so if you're operating in a local time zone, you must convert. And the table gives you the time of sunrise — the moment the upper limb of the sun appears above the horizon. That's the standard definition used in the Air Almanac. So to summarize the whole picture: this table is your quick reference for sunrise time at any latitude for any day in April and May. The times are UTC, in hours and minutes. Northern latitudes show sunrise getting earlier through spring, the equator stays nearly constant, and southern latitudes show sunrise getting later. And the G notation at high latitudes tells you when the sun doesn't rise at all. That's the complete picture of this table.