{"id":14229,"date":"2025-06-03T16:18:30","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T10:48:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ibexaviation.com\/pilot-training\/?p=14229"},"modified":"2026-07-26T10:14:56","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T04:44:56","slug":"mercator-cylindrical-projection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ibexaviation.com\/pilot-training\/mercator-cylindrical-projection\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercator Cylindrical Projection"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ibexaviation.com\/page-show\/general-navigation\/g14-mercator-projection-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<h2>Normal Mercator Projection<\/h2>\n<p>The Normal Mercator Projection is a cylindrical map projection where meridians and parallels are shown as straight lines. It preserves direction and angles, making it useful for navigation. However, it causes greater distortion of size and distance near the poles.<\/p>\n<h3>Introduction to the Mercator Projection<\/h3>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ibexaviation.com\/page-show\/general-navigation\/g14-mercator-projection-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Gerardus Mercator<\/strong> mathematically modified the perspective cylindrical projection.<\/li>\n<li>The Mercator modification made scale expansion equal in all directions.<\/li>\n<li>North-south and east-west scale expansions were equalized.<\/li>\n<li>Scale expansion on a Mercator chart is proportional to the <strong>secant of latitude (sec \u03c6)<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Scale at any latitude = Scale at the Equator \u00d7 sec(latitude)<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Because scale expansion is equal in all directions, the Mercator projection is <strong>orthomorphic (conformal)<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The Mercator projection is a <strong>non-perspective orthomorphic cylindrical projection<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Scale Distortion on a Mercator Projection<\/h3>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ibexaviation.com\/page-show\/general-navigation\/g14-mercator-projection-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Large areas and high latitudes experience significant distortion of shape and size.<\/li>\n<li>Shapes remain reasonably accurate over small areas.<\/li>\n<li>Chart convergence is correct only at the equator, where its value is zero.<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>ICAO<\/strong> accepts a scale error of up to <strong>1%<\/strong> as a practically constant scale.<\/li>\n<li>The scale at any latitude is obtained by multiplying the equatorial scale by the secant of latitude.<\/li>\n<li>Within <strong>8\u00b0 North and South<\/strong>, the scale error is less than <strong>1%<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Within <strong>6\u00b0 North and South<\/strong>, the scale error is less than <strong>0.5%<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Scale Distortion Beyond 8\u00b0 Latitude<\/h3>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ibexaviation.com\/page-show\/general-navigation\/g14-mercator-projection-4.jpg\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Beyond <strong>8\u00b0 North or South<\/strong>, scale expansion exceeds <strong>1%<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The printed chart scale can no longer be used directly for accurate distance measurements.<\/li>\n<li>Distances should be measured using the <strong>local scale<\/strong> at the required latitude.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Rhumb Lines and Great Circles<\/h3>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ibexaviation.com\/page-show\/general-navigation\/g14-mercator-projection-5.jpg\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Rhumb lines appear as <strong>straight lines<\/strong> because they cross all meridians at a constant angle.<\/li>\n<li>The equator and all parallels of latitude are represented as straight lines.<\/li>\n<li>Meridians are equally spaced straight lines that are perpendicular to the equator.<\/li>\n<li>Great circles (except the equator and meridians) appear as <strong>curved lines<\/strong>, concave toward the equator or convex toward the nearer pole.<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>equator<\/strong> and <strong>all meridians<\/strong> are both great circles and rhumb lines, so they are shown as straight lines.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Normal Mercator Projection The Normal Mercator Projection is a cylindrical map projection where meridians and parallels are shown as straight lines. It preserves direction and angles, making it useful for navigation. However, it causes greater distortion of size and distance near the poles. Introduction to the Mercator Projection Gerardus Mercator mathematically modified the perspective cylindrical projection. The Mercator modification made scale expansion equal in all directions. North-south and east-west scale expansions were equalized. Scale expansion on a Mercator chart is proportional to the secant of latitude (sec \u03c6). Scale at&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"disable_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[324],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cpl-atpl-general-navigation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ibexaviation.com\/pilot-training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ibexaviation.com\/pilot-training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ibexaviation.com\/pilot-training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ibexaviation.com\/pilot-training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ibexaviation.com\/pilot-training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14229"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ibexaviation.com\/pilot-training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16632,"href":"https:\/\/ibexaviation.com\/pilot-training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14229\/revisions\/16632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ibexaviation.com\/pilot-training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ibexaviation.com\/pilot-training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ibexaviation.com\/pilot-training\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}