Dead Reckoning and the Wind Triangle
Heading, track, airspeed, groundspeed, drift, time, fuel and use of a navigation computer or graphical wind solution.
How to prepare for UK CAA PPL theory
Work from the training-organisation recommendation and selected aircraft category, map study to the current CAA learning objectives, and use the live booking confirmation for paper-specific logistics.
Core concepts
Concept 1
The wind triangle links true airspeed and heading to groundspeed and track.
Exam cue: Draw or state wind from direction before applying drift.
Concept 2
Distance, groundspeed and time combine with fuel flow to predict leg timing and fuel use.
Exam cue: Keep heading separate from track and airspeed separate from groundspeed.
Concept 3
Dead reckoning remains a prediction that must be checked and corrected with observed position.
Exam cue: Use a reasonableness check on wind correction, time and fuel.
Risk pitfalls and guardrails
Applying wind direction as where it blows to.
Guardrail: Do not blend aeroplane and helicopter objectives or treat the aggregate 601-item study allocation as an official CAA question total.
Using indicated airspeed directly as true airspeed.
Guardrail: Do not blend aeroplane and helicopter objectives or treat the aggregate 601-item study allocation as an official CAA question total.
Correcting ETA without revising fuel and downstream decisions.
Guardrail: Do not blend aeroplane and helicopter objectives or treat the aggregate 601-item study allocation as an official CAA question total.
Memory anchors
Wind From
Meteorological wind direction states where the wind comes from.
Heading
Heading is where the aircraft points.
Track
Track is the path over the ground.
Groundspeed
Groundspeed determines time over a known ground distance.
One in Sixty
Small track error can be estimated from distance flown and off-track distance.
Checkpoint rule
Do the check-up only after you can summarize each concept in one sentence and identify one dangerous pitfall from memory.
Knowledge Check (after reading)
Short check-up to confirm understanding of this module.
Check-up Questions
At 90 kt groundspeed, 45 NM takes?
At 110 kt, 77 NM takes?
Answer all questions to submit.
Next step personalized recommendations
Continue learning
Move forward only after this module is stable.
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