CCG Strings (Forward and Inverse)

CCG is cartesian coordinate grid. A shorthand notation for specifying the location of an aircraft relative to a control tower optimized for radio communication in military applications. The units for CCG are whole nautical miles.

The Cartesian Coordinate Grid (CCG) is designed to represent a position, in XY coordinates, relative to a known reference point called the Data Link Reference Point (DLRP).

The grid system’s origin is the DLRP, with the Y axis oriented along the meridian.

Grid positions in the CCG system are displayed in the following alphanumeric string format:

In the example, A represents a letter and N represents a numeral. The letter (ANNN/NNN) corresponds to a quadrant in the coordinate system. Each quadrant is designated by a color:

• W for “White” denotes the Northeast quadrant
• R for “Red” denotes the Northwest quadrant
• G for “Green” denotes the Southwest quadrant
• B for “Blue” denotes Southeast quadrant

The first three numerals (ANNN/NNN) following the letter represent the X coordinate of the position, which, depending on the quadrant in which it is located is read east or west of the DLRP. The second three numerals (ANNN/NNN) represent the Y coordinate of the position which, depending on the quadrant in which it is located, is read either north or south of the DLRP. The numeric portion of the CCG string represents nautical miles. So a CCG string representing a distance between a point and the origin is only accurate to the nearest nautical mile.