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by lxgr 1704 days ago
Wouldn't it be possible to broadcast local magnetic declination over ATIS or other automated broadcast systems?

As far as I know (and according to the article), modern navigation systems contain databases of the local magnetic declination anyway; instead of updating maps and navigational databases, we could just update these declination database instead every once in a while if I understand it correctly.
1 comments
chrisseaton 1704 days ago
How do you apply these things without knowing where you are?

True/magnetic deviation is localised. You need to know where you are to know what the localised value is.

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lxgr 1704 days ago
Wouldn't a very rough location suffice, i.e. something that could be either manually set (for general aviation and shorter distances), derived from a VOR station identifier or similar, or just estimated via dead reckoning/an INS?

In other words, if you don't even have a rough idea of where you are, what good will a magnetic heading do?

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chrisseaton 1703 days ago
Rough yeah - but I think it does change by integer degrees from actual map sheet to map sheet, so you could probably drift a couple of degrees without knowing it within an hour or so of flying.
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