How do airline pilots know the route they need to follow on a flight?
In: Engineering
Nowadays airline pilots can “know” a route they need to follow the same way you “know” how to follow the instructions from your GPS navigator app on your smartphone. It isn’t much different from navigating in your car other than there are no visible roads and you have to think about the vertical dimension.
However, as a pilot myself (not an airline pilot), I can say you are trained in all manner of navigation methods starting with dead-reckoning by identifying visual landmarks while following a map (called a “sectional chart”) made for the purpose, to navigating without looking out the window at all, relying on your instruments and radio navigation aids, all the way up to fully-automated GPS navigation with integrated autopilot. And combinations in between.
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