MERIDIAN

A (geographic) meridian (or line of longitude) is the half of an imaginary great

circle on the Earth's surface, terminated by the North Pole and the South Pole,
connecting points of equal longitude, as measured in angular degrees east or west of
the Prime Meridian.

The position of a point along the meridian is given by that longitude and its latitude,
measured in angular degrees north or south of the Equator. Each meridian is
perpendicular to all circles of latitude. Each is also the same length, being half of a great
circle on the Earth's surface and therefore measuring 20,003.93 km (12,429.9 miles).

RHUMB LINES

In navigation, a rhumb line, rhumb, (/rʌm/) or loxodrome is an arc crossing all meridians
of longitude at the same angle, that is, a path with constant bearing as measured
relative to true or magnetic north.
GREAT CIRCLE

A great circle, also known as an orthodrome, of a sphere is the intersection of the

sphere and a plane that passes through the center point of the sphere. A great circle is
the largest circle that can be drawn on any given sphere.

Any diameter of any great circle coincides with a diameter of the sphere, and therefore
all great circles have the same center and circumference as each other.

This special case of a circle of a sphere is in opposition to a small circle, that is, the
intersection of the sphere and a plane that does not pass through the center. Every
circle in Euclidean 3-space is a great circle of exactly one sphere.

LATITUDE

In geography, latitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the north–south position

of a point on the Earth's surface. Latitude is an angle (defined below) which ranges from
0° at the Equator to 90° (North or South) at the poles. Lines of constant latitude, or
parallels, run east–west as circles parallel to the equator.

Latitude is used together with longitude to specify the precise location of features on the
surface of the Earth. On its own, the term latitude should be taken to be the geodetic
latitude as defined below.

Briefly, geodetic latitude at a point is the angle formed by the vector perpendicular (or
normal) to the ellipsoidal surface from that point, and the equatorial plane. Also defined
are six auxiliary latitudes which are used in special applications.
LONGITUDE

Longitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east–west position of a point on

the Earth's surface, or the surface of a celestial body. It is an angular measurement,
usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek letter lambda (λ). Meridians
(lines running from pole to pole) connect points with the same longitude. By convention,
one of these, the Prime Meridian, which passes through the Royal Observatory,
Greenwich, England, was allocated the position of 0° longitude. The longitude of other
places is measured as the angle east or west from the Prime Meridian, ranging from 0°
at the Prime Meridian to +180° eastward and −180° westward. Specifically, it is the
angle between a plane through the Prime Meridian and a plane through both poles and
the location in question. (This forms a right-handed coordinate system with the z-axis
(right hand thumb) pointing from the Earth's center toward the North Pole and the x-axis
(right hand index finger) extending from the Earth's center through the Equator at the
Prime Meridian.)

A location's north–south position along a meridian is given by its latitude, which is

approximately the angle between the local vertical and the equatorial plane.
TRUE COURSE

In navigation, the course of a vessel or aircraft is the cardinal direction in which the craft
is to be steered. The course is to be distinguished from the heading, which is the
compass direction in which the craft's bow or nose is pointed.

The path that a vessel follows over the ground is called a ground track, course made
good or course over the ground. For an aircraft it is simply its track. The intended track
is a route. For ships and aircraft, routes are typically straight-line segments between
waypoints. A navigator determines the bearing (the compass direction from the craft's
current position) of the next waypoint. Because water currents or wind can cause a craft
to drift off course, a navigator sets a course to steer that compensates for drift. The
helmsman or pilot points the craft on a heading that corresponds to the course to steer.
If the predicted drift is correct, then the craft's track will correspond to the planned
course to the next waypoint. Course directions are specified in degrees from north,
either true or magnetic. In aviation, north is usually expressed as 360°. Navigators used
ordinal directions, instead of compass degrees, e.g. "northeast" instead of 45° until the
mid-20th century when the use of degrees became prevalent.

DISTANCE

Distance is a numerical measurement of how far apart objects or points are. In physics
or everyday usage, distance may refer to a physical length or an estimation based on
other criteria (e.g. "two counties over"). In most cases, "distance from A to B" is
interchangeable with "distance from B to A". In mathematics, a distance function or
metric is a generalization of the concept of physical distance. A metric is a function that
behaves according to a specific set of rules, and is a way of describing what it means
for elements of some space to be "close to" or "far away from" each other.
DEPARTURE

In aviation terminology, Departure refers to an outgoing flight and Arrival refers to an

incoming flight. Departed means the flight has left for the destination and
flight arrived means the flight has landed. STD refers to the Scheduled Time
of Departure

GREAT CIRCLE TRACK

Great-circle navigation or orthodromic navigation (related to orthodromic course; from

the Greek ορθóς, right angle, and δρóμος, path) is the practice of navigating a vessel (a
ship or aircraft) along a great circle. Such routes yield the shortest distance between
two points on the globe.

VERTEX

In geometry, a vertex (plural: vertices or vertexes) is a point where two or more curves,
lines, or edges meet. As a consequence of this definition, the point where two lines
meet to form an angle and the corners of polygons and polyhedra are vertices.

MERCATOR CHART

The Mercator projection is a cylindrical map projection presented by the Flemish

geographer and cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569. It became the standard map
projection for navigation because of its unique property of representing any course of
constant bearing as a straight segment. Such a course, known as a rhumb or,
mathematically, a loxodrome, is preferred by navigators because the ship can sail in a
constant compass direction to reach its destination, eliminating difficult and error-prone
course corrections. Linear scale is constant on the Mercator in every direction around
any point, thus preserving the angles and the shapes of small objects and fulfilling the
conditions of a conformal map projection. As a side effect, the Mercator projection
inflates the size of objects away from the equator. This inflation starts infinitesimally but
accelerates with latitude to reach infinite at the poles. So, for example, landmasses
such as Greenland and Antarctica appear far larger than they actually are relative to
landmasses near the equator, such as Central Africa.

GNOMONIC CHART

A gnomonic map projection displays all great circles as straight lines, resulting in any
straight line segment on a gnomonic map showing a geodesic, the shortest route
between the segment's two endpoints. This is achieved by casting surface points of the
sphere onto a tangent plane, each landing where a ray from the center of the sphere
passes through the point on the surface and then on to the plane. No distortion occurs
at the tangent point, but distortion increases rapidly away from it. Less than half of the
sphere can be projected onto a finite map. Consequently, a rectilinear photographic
lens, which is based on the gnomonic principle, cannot image more than 180 degrees.