If the aircraft encounters a target that is not ahead of the aircraft and not on an identical track, then the angular bearing to that target is called a relative bearing.

Its powerful beams, generated near the runway, are made up of pulses that tell the shuttle three crucial things: its altitude, distance from the runway and its angular bearing in relation to the runway's centerline.

When a vessel is within radar range of land or special radar aids to navigation, the navigator can take distances and angular bearings to charted objects and use these to establish arcs of position and lines of position on a chart.