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Often used for aeronautical charts, a Lambert conformal conic projection in essence superimposes a cone over the sphere of the Earth, with two reference parallels secant to the globe and intersecting it. This minimizes distortion from projecting a three dimensional surface to a two-dimensional surface. Distortion is least along the standard parallels, and increases further from the chosen parallels. As the name indicates, maps using this projection are conformal.
Pilots favor these charts because a straight line drawn on a Lambert conformal conic projection approximates a great circle route, which is the shortest distance between two points on the surface of a sphere.
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