Bearings

📋 Summary

• Bearings describe an angle used mainly for navigation — think of it as "which direction, exactly."
• Three unbreakable rules: measured from North, measured clockwise, written with 3 digits (e.g. 007°, 090°, 245°).
• To find a bearing between two points: draw North at the starting point, join the two points with a line, measure the clockwise angle between them.
• To plot a point on a given bearing: draw North at the start point, measure the angle clockwise, then mark the distance along that new line.
• Back bearings: the bearing of B from A and the bearing of A from B differ by exactly 180°. Add 180° if the original bearing is under 180°; subtract 180° if it's over.
• Trickier bearings questions often bring in Pythagoras and trigonometry (especially for right-angled triangles formed between North lines and travel paths).

🧭 What Are Bearings?

A bearing is simply a way of describing a direction as an angle. Instead of saying "go north-east-ish," a bearing lets you say exactly which way to go — down to the degree. This precision is exactly why ships, planes, and hikers use bearings instead of vague compass words.

Every single bearing you ever measure or draw must follow three rules, no exceptions:

The Compass Directions as Bearings

It really helps to know these off by heart, since they come up constantly as reference points:

📐 Finding a Bearing Between Two Points

This is the classic "measure the bearing of A from B" question. The trickiest part isn't the measuring — it's knowing where to stand before you even pick up your protractor.