Module 4: Reading Aeronautical Charts
Module 3 taught the rules for every class of airspace. This module teaches the skill of actually finding that airspace on a real sectional chart — the printed or digital map every remote pilot needs to be able to read fluently before a flight. You'll learn the chart's scale and how to measure real-world distance from it, its colors and symbols, how to identify airspace boundaries, how to read airport and obstacle data, the difference between MSL and AGL altitudes as charted, how to use the full chart legend, and the digital tools — including the FAA's own B4UFLY app — that make chart information available in real time on a phone or tablet.
Learning outcomes
- Explain what a sectional aeronautical chart is and how its 1:500,000 scale converts to real-world nautical and statute miles.
- Identify the meaning of chart colors, terrain shading, and the most common point symbols for airports, obstacles, and cultural features.
- Identify Class B, C, D, and E airspace boundaries on a sectional chart by their distinct line styles and colors, and recognize Class G by the absence of an overlying floor.
- Read airport data blocks and obstacle symbols, including obstacle height in both MSL and AGL.
- Convert between MSL and AGL altitudes using chart-published ground elevation and Maximum Elevation Figures.
- Use the full sectional chart legend to decode any symbol not already memorized.
- Identify the FAA's B4UFLY app and other digital chart tools, and explain how they supplement — not replace — chart-reading skill.
The seven lessons in this module move from the chart as a whole down to its finest details, then back out to the digital tools built on top of it. Lesson A introduces the sectional chart itself — what it is, why it's printed at 1:500,000 scale, and how to measure real-world distance from a chart measurement using a built-in calculator. Lesson B covers the colors and symbols that carry most of a chart's information: terrain elevation shading, airport symbols, obstacle markers, and cultural features like roads and powerlines.
Lesson C connects chart reading directly back to Module 3 by teaching how each airspace class's boundary is actually drawn — the solid blue of Class B, the solid magenta of Class C, the dashed blue of Class D, and the dashed or shaded magenta and blue used for different types of Class E, with Class G identified by what's absent rather than a line of its own. Lesson D covers airports, towers, and obstacles — the specific point data a pilot needs before flying near any of them. Lesson E teaches the MSL/AGL distinction that trips up more new pilots than almost any other charting concept, with a working converter calculator.
Lesson F is a complete walk through the chart legend itself, so no symbol is ever a total mystery. The module closes with Lesson G, covering B4UFLY and other digital chart tools that put this same information in a pilot's pocket in real time — useful, but never a substitute for actually understanding what's being displayed. This module supports ACS Tasks II.A and II.B directly: every real Part 107 knowledge test question that shows a chart excerpt is testing the reading skill built here, not memorization of any one figure.
What a sectional chart is, its 1:500,000 scale, and measuring real-world distance from it.
Terrain shading, airport symbols, obstacle markers, and cultural features.
Reading Class B, C, D, E, and G boundaries by line style and color.
Reading airport data blocks and obstacle height labels.
Converting between the two altitude references, with a working calculator.
A complete walkthrough of the legend so no symbol stays a mystery.
The FAA's B4UFLY app and other digital tools built on chart data.