Hi. Assume your aircraft is sitting on a runway on the Equator heading due east (90 degrees). ZERO wind for this question. Lets assume there is a VOR station due east of you at 1000 miles range also sitting on the equator… If you fly along the 270 degree radial all the way to the station ON THE EQUATOR, will your compass always read a 90 degree heading?
My greater question thus is this: Is it possible to circumnavigate the earth ON the equator, and is there any instrument that you do not have to adjust (like the compass because of magnetic declination) that would show you flying in a STRAIGHT line? I would assume GPS would do it but is there any other way to verify that you indeed flying in a straight line?
as far as your greater question goes, i believe that there is a function on modern jetliners that switches to true heading when necessary
don’t take my word for it, though
If I understand the question and this image correctly, the Equator does not line up with the Magnetic Equator (Aclinic Line), so I would think ‘no’ is the simple answer (to the “no adjustment” question).
yes it will always show a east heading of 090. Since you will be consistently traveling east. However you’re not going to pick up a VOR from 1,000 NM away. Unless you’re in the hundreds of thousands of feet MSL, and the VOR out put is far stronger then the ones we have.
For your second question no unless your flying solely off GPS or adjust to the magnetic deviation of each region manually as it happens. Which would be difficult.
