Abstract: Data obtained by airborne position and orientation system (POS) are in WGS 84 global geocentric reference frame, the national coordinate reference systems for topographic mapping in China are generally Gauss-Kruger projection coordinate system. Therefore, data obtained by a POS must be transformed to national coordinate system. Owing to the effects of earth curvature and meridian deviation, there are some errors in the process of angle transformation from roll, pitch and heading obtained directly by a POS to the attitude angles of images needed in photogrammetry. On the basis of effect theories of earth curvature and meridian deviation on exterior orientation angular elements of images, the method using a compensation matrix to correct the transformation errors from attitude angles obtained by the POS to exterior orientation angular elements of images is proposed in this paper. Moreover, the rigorous formula of the compensation matrix is deduced. Two sets of actual data obtained by POS AV 510 which are different in scale and terrain are selected and used to perform experiments. The empirical results not only indicate that the compensation matrix proposed in this paper is correct and practical, but also show that transformation accuracy of exterior orientation angular elements obtained by the POS based on compensation matrix is relevant to the choice of vertical axis (a projection of central meridian) of Gauss-Kruger projection coordinate system; the proper vertical axis should be the Gauss-Kruger projection of the central meridian of projection zone which survey area locates. However, the transformation accuracy of exterior orientation angular elements is irrelevant to the choice of origin of coordinate system; it is appropriate that the origin of coordinate system locates at the center point of the survey area. Moreover, transformation accuracy of exterior orientation angular elements computed based on the compensation matrix deduced in this paper is higher than that obtained by the POS.