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fixed azimuth dial — Aviation Definition | Keynomen Aviation

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fixed azimuth dial

Plain English Meaning

A round dial on the ADF instrument that does not turn. It is permanently marked with 0 at the top representing the nose of the aircraft, and the needle shows the angle from the nose to the radio station the pilot is tuned to.

Full Definition

A non-rotating compass card on an Automatic Direction Finder (ADF) indicator that always displays 0° at the top, 90° on the right, 180° at the bottom, and 270° on the left. The ADF needle points to the relative bearing of the tuned station, measured clockwise from the nose of the aircraft.

Context Anchor

Seen when using an ADF indicator to locate or track a selected radio station.

fixed azimuth dial

Derivation

‘Azimuth’ comes from the Arabic ‘as-sumut’ meaning ‘the directions.’ In navigation it refers to a horizontal angle measured around a circle. ‘Fixed’ here means the dial does not rotate — unlike a movable card that can be turned to align with the aircraft heading.

Why Pilots Care

Enables immediate reading of relative bearing to the station without manual calculation or card rotation.

Intuition Check

Do not assume the top of the dial means north. On a fixed azimuth dial, the top means the airplane’s nose, and the needle shows the station’s direction from that nose.

Example Sentence 1

With the fixed azimuth dial showing the needle at 045°, the pilot knew the NDB station was 45° to the right of the aircraft’s nose.

Example Sentence 2

When the needle pointed to 270 on the fixed azimuth dial, the station was directly off the left wing.