Avielevate / DGCA CPL papers / Air Navigation
DGCA CPL Air Navigation — question bank and syllabus
Getting there and proving you can: the Earth and great circles, charts and projections, magnetism and compasses, dead reckoning, radio navigation, time and flight planning, and radar and flight plans.
What is in this paper
Every chapter we cover for Air Navigation, with how many questions sit behind each one.
These counts come straight out of the question bank and are regenerated whenever it changes —
they are not a claim, they are what is there today.
Sample questions, answered and explained
A few real questions from this paper, with the answer marked and the reasoning
written out — the same explanations you get inside the app. Everything else is behind a free
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0209037 · The Solar System
The times of sunrise, sunset, and morning and evening twilight given in the Air Almanac are stated in:
- Aare stated in UTC.
- Bare stated in standard time.
- Care stated in LMT.
Why that is the answer
Sunrise and sunset happen at roughly the same **local** time at every place on the same latitude. For example, if sunrise is at 0600 local time on one meridian at 20°N, it will be at about 0600 local time on every other meridian at 20°N too.
So the Air Almanac tabulates these times in **Local Mean Time (LMT)**, against latitude only.
To use them, you look up the LMT for your latitude and then convert it to UTC using your longitude (4 minutes of time for every 1° of longitude).
0209039 · The Solar System
What is the main cause of the seasons?
- AThe Earth's spin axis is inclined to the plane of its orbit round the Sun
- BThe distance between the Earth and the Sun changes over the year
- CThe Earth's orbital speed round the Sun changes with the time of year
Why that is the answer
The **seasons** come from the tilt of the Earth's spin axis. The axis leans about **23.5°** from the perpendicular to the plane of the Earth's orbit, and it keeps pointing the same way in space (towards the Pole Star) all year.
Look at the diagram. As the Earth travels round the Sun, first one hemisphere and then the other leans towards the Sun. The hemisphere leaning towards the Sun has the Sun high in the sky, so its rays hit the ground more directly and the days are long. That is summer. The hemisphere leaning away has a low Sun and short days, which is winter. Half a year later the roles swap.
So the main cause of the seasons is that **the Earth's spin axis is inclined to the plane of its orbit round the Sun**.
0210035 · The Earth
Place A is at 57°N 176°W and place B is at 60°N 177°E. What is the d'long, and what is the approximate track from B to A?
- A351° and 310°
- B7° and 130°
- C7° and 310°
Why that is the answer
This question needs two ideas: the **change of longitude (d'long)**, and a rough sense of which way A lies from B.
**Step 1: d'long**
One longitude is W and the other is E, so add them: 176° + 177° = 353°.
That is more than 180°, so it is the long way round. The short way is across the 180° meridian: 360° − 353° = **7°**. (The diagram shows the same method with other numbers.)
**Step 2: which way is A from B?**
From 177°E, crossing 180° and on to 176°W, you travel **east**. A is also 3° of latitude further **south** (60°N down to 57°N). So A lies to the **south-east** of B.
**Step 3: rough angle**
North–south distance (d'lat): 3° × 60 = 180 NM.
East–west distance (called **departure**): 7° × 60 × cos 58.5° (the mean latitude) ≈ 420 × 0.52 ≈ 220 NM.
The track is turned from due south towards the east by an angle whose tangent is 220 ÷ 180 ≈ 1.22, which is about 50°. Measured clockwise from north: 180° − 50° = **about 130°**.
So the answer is **7° and 130°**.
0210042 · The Earth
Approximately how many feet are there in one nautical mile at the equator?
- A6105'
- B6076'
- C6046'
Why that is the answer
A **nautical mile** is the length of **one minute of latitude** measured along a meridian.
Because the Earth is slightly flattened, the curve of a meridian is sharper near the equator, so one minute of latitude is a little shorter there — about **6,046 ft** — and longer near the poles, about 6,108 ft.
The average value is about 6,080 ft, and the internationally agreed nautical mile is 1,852 m (6,076 ft).
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The other DGCA CPL papers
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