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Wind Correction Angle vs Drift: Heading, Track and the Wind Triangle

By admin /

The nose points straight at the destination, yet the aircraft slides sideways across the map. That is drift, and correcting for it with a wind correction angle (WCA) is one of the first skills of air navigation, both in the cockpit and in DGCA Air Navigation exams.

Heading vs track

  • Heading: the direction the aircraft's nose is pointing.
  • Track: the actual path the aircraft follows over the ground.

With no wind, heading and track are the same. With a crosswind, the air mass carries the aircraft sideways, so the track differs from the heading.

Drift angle

The drift angle is the angle between heading and track. Wind from the left pushes the aircraft to the right (starboard drift); wind from the right pushes it to the left (port drift).

Wind correction angle

To fly the planned track, the pilot turns the nose slightly into the wind. That correction is the WCA. When it is exactly right, the drift cancels out and the aircraft tracks along the planned line. In steady conditions the WCA equals the drift angle, applied in the opposite direction.

Watch: WCA vs drift in 60 seconds

The wind triangle

Navigation problems are solved with the triangle of velocities, made of three vectors:

  1. Heading and true airspeed (the aircraft through the air).
  2. Wind direction and speed (the air over the ground).
  3. Track and groundspeed (the result over the ground).

Know any two and you can find the third, using a navigation computer such as the CRP-5 or by calculation.

The 1-in-60 shortcut

For quick mental calculations, maximum drift (with the wind at 90°) is approximately:

Maximum drift (degrees) ≈ wind speed ÷ TAS × 60

Example: a 20-knot wind and a TAS of 120 knots gives a maximum drift of about 10°. With the wind at an angle, scale it down by the crosswind component.

Tips for exams and the cockpit

  • Always correct into the wind.
  • A headwind component reduces groundspeed; a tailwind increases it.
  • Recheck the WCA when the wind changes with altitude or along the route.
  • On a holding pattern, outbound wind correction is roughly three times the inbound drift. See holding pattern entries.

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