Hey guys-- Jon with fl8MA.com and today I'm here to talk to you about how to use the VOR
receiver in your airplane when you're in the airplane.
So when you're actually going out for a flight lesson-- maybe flight lesson 6, or 8 or 10--
whenever your flight instructor decides to introduce the VOR to you, you'll be ready
to know how to use it, and how to use it to navigate where you want to go.
So for starters here, let's say we hop in our airplane, we're flying out of Venice airport
and we want to fly to Sarasota.
Well obviously, we could just follow the coast, but let's say we're in the middle of the country
and we don't have a convenient coastline to follow, we want to use the VOR to do so.
We're going to use the VOR, and we're going to use the frequency of 117.0 in that VOR
box there.
We're going to dial that into our Nav-radio and make sure that's in the active part of
our frequency, so if we put it in standby, we'll switch it over to be "active."
And then we can actually go ahead and tune up the VOR and listen to it.
Listen to the morse code, and make sure we're getting the right reception from the VOR,
and your instructor will show you how to listen to the morse code since it's a little different
in each aircraft.
But in any case, we've got 117 dialed up and we are down to the southeast of the VOR, so
here's our little airplane, there's the Sarasota VOR, and we're southeast of it.
We want to get to it.
Let's say we don't know even if we're southeast or southwest or where ever we are, it doesn't
matter, we don't have to know where we are.
All we have to do is have that frequency dialed in and then take our OBS knob, or "Omni Bearing
Selector" and start twisting it around to where we can get a to-flag.
So, we have that to-flag here.
Then we want to center up our needle.
So we're just twisting that around, we can see the outer ring turning and changing it's
heading there.
As we're twisting this OBS knob, the needle becomes centered with a 2 indication and we
simply have to fly that heading roughly about 325 or so, and that will take us to the station.
We can see that we have dialed-up here the 324 radial outbound from the station.
We're actually located on the 144 radial from the station right now.
So, we can see our heading.
We're kind of turned off, heading to the northeast.
We want to fly a heading of 325 to get to the station, and if we just keep flying the
current heading that we're on, we're going to notice that the needs start to come off
a little bit showing us the course is to your left.
You need to fly this heading, and so we look up here to our DG, and we'll actually go ahead
and turn our aircraft and start flying a heading of 325 to get back to our radial inbound to
fly to the station.
Now as we make this turn, and we get roughly towards 325 or so there, we'll go ahead and
level our wings, fly straight, and then we can go ahead and just twist this again to
recenter the knob, and fly that heading.
So I'm getting roughly in the neighborhood of 330 or so.
I'm going to go ahead and start to roll out here, and as our wings are level, we're flying
straight, Now, I want to go ahead and center up my CDI again, so I'm going to go ahead
and twist that around.
I've got a CDI centered at about 320, that means that I need about a 320 heading.
And you can see how we slight diverging angle there, so if I bank a little more to the left,
and fly a heading of 320, I'll be perfectly lined up to go to the station.
So no matter where we are when we start, we can always find our way back to the station
just by twisting the OBS, getting a to-flag and getting the needle centered.
Then once we have the needle centered, whatever heading we see depicted at the top here, we
want to fly roughly that heading.
We're about a 315 heading here, so I'll go ahead and turn a little bit back to a 320
heading.
Seeing the needle go just slightly to the right there means we want to turn slightly
to the right to go get it.
So whenever you have a to-flag, you have positive sensing.
If the needle goes right, you turn to the right to go get the needle and bring it back.
So if I turn off to the left here, and we'll speed up just to make this happen a little
faster, if I turn my aircraft off to the left, we're going to notice the needle goes to the
right because it's saying, "Hey, your course is off to your right."
So now I want to go ahead and go back to the right to center up the needle.We see it drifting
off to the right there.
And now I'm turning the airplane back to the right, and as we get passed that 320, so we're
not paralleling anymore, now we have an intercept going on.
We're turning 330, 340.
I'll give myself about a 20-degree intercept to it.
Then we're going to see the needle start coming back to the center.
And as the needle recenters, then we'll go ahead and fly as close to this heading as
we can.
Now, you may have a wind coming from say, like you're left there, or a wind from the
right where you actually have to track the airplane and fly a heading of 350 to hold
a ground track of 320 because remember the VOR is a ground-based station, and it's really
that these radials are fixed in position.
So, it's a ground-track that it's referencing.
So that's how we could get to the station.
Now let's go ahead and say that we want to find out what radial we're on from the station,
and the instructor says, "Hey, what radial are you on from the station," or "Where are
you relative to the station?"
So let's just pretend we don't know where our airplane is right now.
I'm just going to move it around here to some random place.
So, we now notice we have a from-flag and we want to go ahead and find out where we
are relative to the station-- northeast, southeast, southwest, whatever it might be.
So I'm going to twist that OBS knob until I have a firm indication and the needle centered.
If I happen to twist too much and say, we have a to-indication, just keep on twisting
until you get that from-indication.
Once you get the from-indication, twist a little slower then, and get the needle centered
up.
There we go.
So we have a from-indication, needle centered, and now we can say where we are from the station.
Well, remember any time we have a from-flag, the number up here is the radial that we are
on.
So we are on the 340 radial.
If you're on the 340 radial from Sarasota, say, you must be somewhere off to the northwest.
And we can see looking at our plane view here, yes, we are in fact to the northwest of the
station.
Now, what if we got really fancy here and I told you something like, "Hey, I want you
to go ahead and intercept the 270 radial from the station and track it inbound and then
fly on the 090 radial outbound from the station."
So that's pretty fancy instruction right there.
That's going to show that you know what's going on.
So, 270 inbound, the 270 radial inbound.
Let's go ahead and dial this guy up here with our OBS knob so that we have 090 on our heading,
because ultimately we're going to be flying to the station on the 270 radial inbound,
and then 090 from the station.
So we first dial it up to 090 there, and then we're going to go ahead and fly our present
heading to intercept the 270 radial.
So we see the to-indication, that's good.
090 is good.
And we're going to go ahead and stay on that heading there.
We'll roll our wings level.
Once we start to see this needle moving in, then we can go ahead and start turning to
the right, and we'll want to get about a 30-degree intercept-- 30-45 degree intercept, depending
on how far you are from the station.
Remember the further you are from the station, the less sensitive this guy is.
Then make that right turn and intercept that radial and track it inbound.
Now, since we have a to-flag, and we're going to be flying to the station, we have positive
sensing.
The needle's on our left, that means we have to go left to get it.
We can see here though, we're already at a 90-degree intercept, so going left won't help
us anymore.
That's about as steep as we can go.
We notice 360 is our heading, and that's about 90 degrees off of 090.
About 010 now, I need to roll our wings level here.
So as we fly this 80-degree intercept, or so, that's about as steep as we can get.
As we start getting closer, I'm going to start shallowing up my intercept angle, so that
needle doesn't do a quick jump to the right and we fly right through it.
As we start to turn more towards the station, it'll make a little bit better sense that,
as the needle's to our left we'll go left to get the radial, and if our needle is to
the right, we'll go right to get it.
So as we're getting closer here, we're going to go ahead and start turning to the right.
We can see our needle's already moving, and hopefully, it's not too late to that we might
actually shoot right through this.
So I should have had a shallower intercept as I approached the radial.
I'll roll over to about a roughly 090 heading up here once I see this needle centered down
here.
I'll go ahead and shallow my bank now.
keep that needle coming in, try to keep that 30-degree intercept, or so, up here on our
heading-- now about a 20-degree intercept.
And as this needle centers up here, I'm going to go ahead and roll on to a 090 heading,
and just track that heading inbound.
Again, if we had wind, we might actually have to fly a heading of, say, like 100, if we
had a wind coming in out of the south pushing the airplane to the north, to stay on that
ground track of 090 to the station, and on the 270 from the station.
Remember, the station's made up of 360 radials, and we have the 270 radial sticking out this
way, the 090 radial sticking out that way.
Even though you have 090 dialed in here, it's 090 to get to the station, not the 090 radial
that you're on.
You're in fact on the 270 radial, and if you were at all in doubt and wanted to confirm
that, remember what we said, we can just twist this guy around to where we get the needle
centered with a from-flag.
Once we get that from-flag, we'll just keep spinning here, get our 270 radial centered
up there.
From-flag 270, needle centered, we are on the 270 radial, roughly.
You know 272-- something close.
In VORs we're not looking for plus or minus 0.1 degrees here, we're giving you a little
leeway since they're not that precise.
A fun fact, how precise should your VOR be?
Well, we typically accept plus or minus 4 degrees as an error when they're actually
testing these VORs on the ground.
When the mechanic tests it and says, "Yeah your VORs working good," he's just testing
it to plus or minus 4 degrees for you.
So we'll go ahead here and fly inbound on the 270 radial on a 090 heading to cross the
VOR and track outbound on the 090 radial.
The only difference we're going to notice here while we're crossing the station, is
instead of 090 to the station, it's going to become 090 and the flag is going to flip
to "from" and it's going to be from the station, because remember, we're going to be on the
090 radial soon.
When we're on the 090 radial, we'll have to have that from-flag with the needle centered,
to show us that we are in fact on the 090 radial.
Why I keep emphasizing radial here, is people often confuse the heading, or bearing, with
radial.
The radials are these fixed lines coming out of the VOR station.
They never move, they are fixed in place, and you can often reference and say, "Yeah
sure the Venice airport lies on the 167 radial from Sarasota."
So if you just go ahead and get this guy tuned up to about 167 at the top there, with a from-flag,
you know you're on the 167 radial from Sarasota.
Now you just have to figure out, how far are you from Sarasota, and then you can exactly
pinpoint where the Venice airport is and where you are in relation to it.
It's safe to say that if you flew over the Sarasota VOR, and then flew the 167 radial
outbound from Sarasota, 167 from the station, then you would, in fact, fly directly over
the Venice airport at some point in the future as you fly outbound on that radial.
So as we proceed outbound on the 270 radial here, with the 090 heading, we can see that
our needle's moving a little faster here.
As we get closer, it gets much more sensitive the closer you get.
And as we cross over, it's going to flip from "to" to "from."
Once it does that, I'll go ahead and pause this and then we'll go ahead and dial it up
so that we can actually fly the 167 radial outbound, and go ahead and find the Venice
airport somehow.
So there's our flip "to" to "from."
Now we're going to go ahead and dial us up to fly the 167 radial to get to Venice and
make sure we keep positive sensing.
So how we're going to do this, is go ahead and dial up 167 in there.
And we notice we have a 167 heading here.
We're "from" the station.
I'll go ahead and un-pause our simulation, and we can see that our needle is off to the
right, so we need to turn our aircraft to the right to go get back on that radial.
So I'll go ahead and bank us to the right here.
And we're turning to the right, we can see our aircraft coming back around and eventually
going to intercept this radial, and we'll be tracking it outbound, and we have positive
sensing because we're flying away from the station, and we have a from-flag.
So positive sensing is when you're flying away from the station with a from-flag, or
you're flying to the station and you have a to-flag.
If it's vice-versa, if you're flying from the station with a to-flag, then it's reverse
sensing where instead of going right to get our needle centered, we actually have to go
left, and the needle acts backward.
A better way to say this might be: if your heading on your DG roughly matches what you
have on your VOR selector there, the OBS setting, then you have positive sensing.
If it's within, say, plus or minus 30 degrees--really if it's within plus or minus 90-- if it's
relatively close, then you have positive sensing.
You have reverse-sensing when it is 180 degrees opposite to what you have select.
So when you're on a heading of 090, but the VOR selector's set to 270, then you have reverse
sensing.
So we'll go ahead and fly about this 200 heading here at about a 30-degree intercept, and as
we see our needle starting to center up.
I'll go ahead and bank a little to the left to go ahead and fly the 167 radial outbound.
I'll turn back towards 167 there.
That'll give me a nice, smooth intercept onto that radial.
See our needle moving there?
I'm turning to the left, and we'll intercept and track this 167 radial outbound towards
the Venice airport.
Now as we're flying along here, say we get a little off course, and we happen to get
blown off to the west side of that radial, we're just going to notice that the needle
moves through center, and it's going to track over to the left, meaning we have to turn
back to the left to go get it.
We're turned to the right now.
I'm going to go ahead and turn back to the left, and that's going to bring our needle
back to the center.
As we see, our heading comes back around the needle will stop diverging as our airplane
comes back around, we'll intercept that course outbound.
Now that we have a nice intercept angle going on here, with our heading of the aircraft
versus the radial that we're dialed into on our OBS, we can see the needle's coming back
to center.
As it centers up, we'll want to go ahead and turn our aircraft heading back close to this
heading here, 167.
We'll want to turn our aircraft towards a 167 heading to keep that needle in the center.
And then, of course, we'll account for any wind correction we might need on to this heading
up here.
To do a quick recap with you guys here, as we're flying along and we don't know where
we are, the instructor's going to say, "Tell me where you are relative to the station."
You're going to say, "Well, I don't know."
So, where are you relative to the Sarasota VOR?
Well, we're just going to spin our OBS knob as long as we have our VOR tuned to the Sarasota
VOR, we'll spin our OBS knob to get a from-flag, and center up the needle.
There's a to-flag-- keep spinning.
There's our from-flag.
We'll keep on spinning, and we'll spin a little slower as we get close, and as we center up
that needle, then we can safely say, "Okay we are 170 from the station.
We are to the southeast of the station.
Mostly south."
If the instructor says, "Good.
Now that you know you're southeast of the station, take me to Sarasota, take me to the
station."
You'll say, "Alright, no problem."
I'm just going to spin this guy around until I get a to-indication.
With the flag in the to-position, and the needle centered.
There's our to-indication.
There's our needle starting to center-- oops, we went too far, we'll go back a little bit.
Twist it nice and slow.
We'll get that needle centered, and okay, I want to fly about a 335 heading to get to
the station.
I'm flying a 075 heading right now, let me go ahead and turn to the left here, and I'll
fly a 335 heading to get to the station.
While we're making this turn, sure the needle gets a little bit out of whack.
We could turn and keep going further left instead of flying at 335, we could fly a 300
heading to come back around and intercept that radial.
Or once you get pointed generally towards the station, you could just twist the OBS
again.
Get the needle centered, read your new heading at the top there, and then fly that heading
on your DG.
So we're roughly pointed towards the station.
I'm going to go ahead and level my wings there.
And then I'm going to twist the OBS to get the needle centered up again.
And now we can see that 325 will take us to the station.
I'll fly that heading of about 325, turning a little to the right here to get back to
it.
We're on a 320 heading right now, and that'll take us to our station.
Well, guys, that's pretty much it for VOR navigation in the airplane.
There's not much more complicated than that, at least at the private pilot level.
We'll get into a little more advanced stuff for the instrument course, and show you some
really fancy tricks with the VOR then.
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