Air Navigation is where CPL students either click or drown. Half the paper is concepts — parallels, meridians, projections — and the other half is numbers you must produce under a clock: convergency, wind triangles, ETA, service ceiling checks. This bank drills both halves across 84 chapters.
What the bank covers
- Earth geometry: lat/long, parallels and meridians, rhumb lines vs great circles, conversion angle
- Charts: Mercator and Lambert conformic projections, scale, chart reading and plotting problems
- Dead reckoning: wind triangle, TAS/GS, heading corrections, ETA and fuel-time problems
- Radio navigation: ADF/NDB, VOR, DME, ILS, MLS and RNAV — geometry, errors and service volumes
- Flight instruments: pitot-static, gyroscopic systems, errors and cross-checks
- Flight planning: units, ISA deviations, drift-down, isochrones and the practical maths examiners favour
Five questions, exactly as the deck asks them
The shortest distance between two points on the earth’s surface is a:
- Rhumb line
- Great circle
- Loxodrome
- Mercantile line
Answer: B — A great circle; a rhumb line holds constant heading but is longer except along the equator or a meridian.
On a Lambert conformic conic chart, a straight line approximates a:
- Rhumb line
- Great circle
- Parallel of latitude
- Meridian only
Answer: B — Lambert’s great-circle straight line is exactly why it is the standard mid-latitude navigation chart.
Convergency between two meridians depends on latitude and:
- The aircraft’s heading
- Change of longitude
- Magnetic variation
- Scale expansion
Answer: B — Convergency = change of longitude × sin(mean latitude) — the pairing the numerical questions test.
A VOR station radials are identified from:
- Magnetic north
- True north
- Grid north
- The station’s variation only
Answer: A — VOR radials point from the station magnetic — that is why the OBS-to-from rule works anywhere in the network.
If the pitot tube is blocked but the static port is clear, the airspeed indicator:
- Freezes at the last speed
- Acts as an altimeter
- Reads zero instantly
- Overspeeds above FL100
Answer: B — A blocked pitot with clear static turns the ASI into a pressure-altitude instrument — a classic failure-mode question.
How to actually clear Navigation
Do the numbers on paper first, then drill them in the app until the formulas are reflex: convergency, conversion angle, wind triangle, ground-speed/time/distance. Chart questions improve fastest with a navigation computer in hand. When concept accuracy passes 80%, move to full 50-question mocks against the 120-minute clock.
Frequently asked questions
How many questions are in the DGCA Air Navigation exam?
Air Navigation is a 50-question, 2-hour module in the DGCA CPL scheme. Qwizio Air’s navigation bank holds 2,567 practice questions across 84 chapters — general navigation, charts, instruments and radio aids. Confirm the current pattern on dgca.gov.in before booking.
What is the hardest part of DGCA Air Navigation?
Most students say the numerical questions: great-circle and rhumb-line tracks, convergency and conversion angle, wind triangles, TAS/GS and ETA problems, and isochrone/drift-down calculations. These reward repetition more than reading, which is exactly what chapter-wise drills with a mistakes-revision pool are for.
Which books cover DGCA Air Navigation?
The Oxford ATPL Navigation series and standard Indian class notes are the usual references. Qwizio Air’s chapters are tagged to those syllabus topics — the app contains no text from any book, only independently written practice questions mapped to the same topics.