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Old 6th Apr 2018, 16:01
  #1193 (permalink)  
Alex Whittingham
 
Join Date: May 1999
Location: Bristol, England
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QDM is relative bearing plus magnetic heading, 292 + 295 = 587, minus 360 to make sense of it = 227 deg mag

true brg to is QDM +/- variation at the aircraft = 227 + 15 =242 deg

This represents the initial true great circle track aircraft to beacon, as radio signals follow the great circle path.

On Mercator charts, however, one has to plot the equivalent rhumb line because great circle paths are shown as curves on this particular archaic form of chart, it is optimised for marine navigation following lines of latitude east/west which show as straight rhumb lines (see C Columbus and 15th century navigation).

The angular difference between the great circle track to the beacon and the rhumb line track to it is half the convergency, 5 degrees. This is called the conversion angle. The outstanding question is whether this should be added to or subtracted from the great circle path. This is decided by remembering that great circles always lie to the poleward side of the equivalent rhumb line and therefore, for a generally westerly great circle bearing of 242 in the southern hemisphere the equivalent rhumb line would be 247 degrees.

If you wanted to plot the rhumb line from the beacon to the aircraft as the question asks you would plot the opposite, 067 degrees.

The second part of the question asks the initial magnetic great circle track to fly. We have already established the QDM is 227, 7 degrees of right drift would require a mag heading of 220 degrees.

I'm guessing this is a school question. How did I do?
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