Azimuth vs Bearing - there is a difference

I'm a veteran of the British Army (royal tank regiment), and keen hill walker. The use of an azimuth is when you know where you have travelled and recorded your bearing and/or azimuth changes. I often go for walks with no destination set at the outset. The point is to walk and pick a direction and head in that direction until it intersects with something (my new meridian). So, if we were using your wall (meridian) yes we could pick any point for us to make up an azimuth to head along, and we could end up in any place parallel to each other uf the wall was straight like diagonal chevrons painted on the back of a highways vehicle. However if you use a distinguishable point along the wall ie a stile, a gate, a sign or even a broken part if the wall or tree something describable and identifiable you can record that as I do and look about find a direction and take an azimuth reading from my (locator along my meridian). If anyone was needing to come to my location say I'm injured and called for mountain rescue, I can lead them along my azimuth to key meridian landmarks ie stile, gate sign tree broken wall etc and the azimuth from that locator. So azimuth does work provided the locator along the meridian is distinguishable to make the azimuth accurate to lead in the correct direction but azimuth only work if you are following directions and not just wandering aimlessly and then the search team are using an azimuth to find uou, they only work if you first record your azimuth from the first key locator (your car hotel bus/train stop cafe etc). Then every direction change is recorded so I take an azimuth of 143 and meet your wall, I record the 143 azimuth from my cars rear bumper facing across the road out of the carpark. When I meet your wall I turn east along the south side of the wall and walk 300m until I meet the stone stile, I then take an azimuth of 40 and follow to my accident in a field 240m from the wall in a depression. So azimuth can and are used effectively and provided they are recorded accurately as you go, they can save your life if rescue is needed. Even if I'm not on an azimuth trail (wandering about lol) I still record my headings and distances and landmarks from departure to my current location, just incase I'm injured and need to get rescue to me. They ain't spending two days searching they know exactly where to find me before they even leave the offices. If I could advise anyone if anything that would be my advice. Record every direction turn landmarks and distance /timing you can in as much detail as you can, the more accurate, the faster help gets to you. Happy walking

Well, we can blame ship navigators for this (I think) because that's where the difference between the two terms is most important. Azimuth is just an angle relative to the ship, with 0 being straight ahead. And this leads to the best description I know: bearings are measured relative to North, azimuths are measured relative to any other direction.

Thank you for the explanation, I didn't know about the difference.

For added confusion, you could address 'yaw'; the difference between the direction you're pointing and the actual direction of travel. For maritime purposes, azimuth is relative to the ships centreline running through the bow.

In engineering field, azimuth is just one of the angles that define a spherical coordinate system. The meridian can be thought as one of the coordinate axes and the azimuth is just one of the two angles that define a space direction (azimuth and elevation). I guess that the problem is that someone gave to azimuth a "magnetic property" while it is instead just an angle with respect to a specific frame of reference (the meridian in your example). On the other hand, bearing lives in the navigation field and its an angle that is related to the magnetic north.

Yet another video clearing up the fog of misconceptions provided by the internet! Thank you very much, always a pleasure to learn from you.

Many thanks. I’ve taught civilian navigation for years and always wondered what ex military folks were talking about. Now I know! (I’ll still only use bearings from the north though 😂)

Enjoying your videos. Thank you.

That is very well explained! thank you for sharing

Such an interesting channel, a treasure of information. Greetings from Romania and thank you for the dedicated work you are doing!

Bloody interesting!!! I have just discovered this channel. I wish I had known this when I was a scout :)

This video was really helpful to me -- particularly where you inserted the diagrams... more than anything, they helped me to feel that I'd caught up with your running narrative.

Thnks coach... well defined ... a child could understand it too

Very interesting lecture for the first time I hear azimuth and versus Bearing. I have always used azimuth as going in a given direction without a compass just in the direction to go in the same direction using the nature of the sun or other signs. It is close to your explanation.

A big thanks...

Hmmmm . . . I learned navigation in the US Navy. What you are calling "bearing", I'd call "heading." Heading is an angle relative to North, usually true North. So when the captain wants to know what direction the ship is going, he asks for the heading. Bearing is relative to an arbitrary datum line, usually the centerline of the ship. So the direction to a lighthouse would be given relative to the ship. "What's the bearing of the lightshoue?" 90 degrees! Which would put it off the starboard side. These terms were also in use in civil aviation when I learned to fly.

Well explained Wayne. I'm sticking to bearings - ! 😅

I am not so dumb as people think, 😇 I had a good idea what an azimuth was; We use to use it in the repair and alignment of old tube radios and new it was to do with angles and can be checked with a protractor. 😋. thank you Mr Map Man

Thank you for the video, not to forget, that an azimuth take from a Grid North, on a map and a Bearing measured from Magnetic North, with a sighting compass, may have a declination error between them..

Thanks for this. Many original definitions these days get lost because of carelessness. Inflation is another example that used to mean increase in money supply, these days it means the increase in cost of living and that is now also being diluted to exclude food and energy prices from "inflation". BTW. AI (or google or wikipedia) is NOT artificial and definitely NOT intelligent. Buy old dictionaries, like Encyclopædia Britannica fourteenth edition, old school is still around but not for long... Build your own Library of Alexandria let your kids inherit, your descendants will thank you for it.