What best describes Relative Heading?

• A. Uses the current direction that an object is facing as the 0/360 azimuth alignment.
• B. Uses the direction of the earth's magnetic field at that location as the reference.
• C. Depends on GPS for navigation.
• D. Is the angle relative to true north.

Answer: (A)

Relative heading is the angle measured from the direction the platform is currently facing. In this reference frame, the forward direction is set as zero degrees (and wraps around to 360). That means all bearings are computed from the object’s own nose rather than from geographic directions. For example, if the aircraft is pointing east, a target directly ahead is 0 relative heading, a target to the right is 90, behind is 180, and to the left is 270. This is why the best description is that it uses the current direction the object is facing as the 0/360 azimuth alignment. It’s not tied to magnetic north or true north and it doesn’t require GPS—the reference is the vehicle’s own orientation.