Course Map
Map and Compass Land Navigation — your route into the course, and your route back to any lesson you have already finished.
Your Progress
Checking progress on this device
Progress is stored in the browser you are studying in. If you switch to a different device or clear your browser data, the lessons will lock again and you will need to work back through them.
Lessons 01–08
Lesson 01 is open from the start. Each lesson after it unlocks when the one before it has been completed — that means every knowledge check answered correctly, not just the page opened.
Lesson 01
The Compass in Your Hand
The lensatic compass part by part, and the two grips that produce a repeatable reading — centre-hold and compass-to-cheek. Reading an azimuth, working the bezel by feel in the dark, and how far you must stand from metal before the needle tells the truth. Opens with the exercise Lesson 08 returns to.
Checking
Lesson 02
Three Norths and the G-M Angle
Why there are three norths, which one your map uses, which one your compass uses, and what the angle between them costs if you ignore it. Converting grid azimuth to magnetic and back, in both directions. Back azimuths, and the error that puts a person exactly 180 degrees wrong and confident.
Checking
Lesson 03
Orienting the Map to the Ground
The step almost everyone skips. Lining the map up with the world in front of you, by compass and by terrain, so that left on the paper is left on the ground. Why an unoriented map produces confident, fluent, entirely wrong navigation.
Checking
Lesson 04
Measuring What You Walk
Field lesson — you will need ground
Establishing your own pace count over a measured distance, then finding what it does on a slope, under load, through brush, tired, and in the dark. Keeping the tally, and using elapsed time as the independent cross-check.
Checking
Lesson 05
Dead Reckoning
Field lesson — you will need ground
Building a route as a series of legs, each an azimuth and a distance. Picking steering marks so you are not walking with your eyes on the compass. Getting around an obstacle without losing the leg, and keeping a log honest enough to reconstruct where you went wrong.
Checking
Lesson 06
Moving by Terrain
Field lesson — you will need ground
Handrails you can follow, catching features that tell you when you have gone too far, and attack points that get you close enough to find something small. Choosing a route by the going rather than the straight line.
Checking
Lesson 07
Fixing Your Position
What to do when you do not know where you are. Resection from two or three features you can identify, the modified version from a linear feature, intersection, and polar coordinates. Ends by turning the fix into an MGRS grid.
Checking
Lesson 08
Planning and Running the Move
Field lesson — after dark
Putting it together on your own ground. Building a route card someone else could follow, running a leg at night, and working the degraded cases — including finding direction with no compass at all. Returns to the Lesson 01 exercise.
Checking
Certificate
NAV-02 Certificate of Completion
Unlocks once all eight lessons are marked complete on this device. You add your name or callsign on the certificate page, and the completion date is set the first time it opens and does not change afterwards.
Checking
How to Use This Page
This page is a shortcut for people already working the course, not a second front door. If you have not started yet, go back to the course overview first. NAV-02 assumes NAV-01 throughout — if you cannot yet read a map margin, interpret contours, and plot an MGRS grid, start there instead. Nothing here will land without it.
Coming back to review is expected and encouraged. A completed lesson stays open permanently, and re-reading Lesson 02 before you next convert an azimuth is a better use of ten minutes than most things you could do with them.
Before the Field Lessons
Lessons 04, 05, 06 and 08 are worked outdoors, not in a chair. You will need a lensatic compass, a paper topographic map of your own ground, a protractor or coordinate scale, a pencil, a notebook, and somewhere you can legally and safely walk several hundred metres off a road. Lesson 08 wants darkness. Plan on two or three separate outings rather than one long one.
Where to Get a Coordinate Scale
A protractor and coordinate scale only work on the map scale they were made for. A 1:24,000 tool read against a 1:50,000 sheet gives confident, wrong answers, so check which scale you are buying before you buy it.
MapTools is the specialist supplier most search and rescue teams use, and they list stock tools by map scale. They also publish free printable versions as PDFs and permit copying and sharing on a not-for-profit basis — print onto clear transparency film, check the printed size against your own map before trusting it, and expect toner to wear unless you laminate. If your map is a scale they do not stock, their site shows how to rescale an existing tool by printing it at a percentage. maptools.com — free tools are under Resources. Fortune Favors the Prepared has no affiliation with them and receives nothing from the link.
Semper Paratus, Semper Gumby