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BigEndBob
17th Mar 2012, 21:18
For those not familiar with Birmingham airspace, the Honiley compass rose has been removed from the 1.500000 chart. One assumes to make the chart more readable in that area.

So how many other instructors and pilots used this beacon and the compass rose to demonstrate and practise position fixing and tracking in this area.
The plan was to reduce infringements of the BHX CTA/CTR, now if one is unsure of position, it has been made more difficult to get a fix not having the printed compass rose in position.

On the Ontrack site i made a suggestion to print the frequencies of the zone around the edges of the zone, this has been adopted but they are now obscured because they are buried in the thick blue border denoting the extremities of the zones!
Whats wrong with printing this vital information in black to provide a high contrast.

mrmum
17th Mar 2012, 22:35
I agree it'll be more difficult to plot a radial with no magnetic compass rose printed around the VOR. However, we're going to have to get used to doing without VORs altogether in the near future, in most of the country, as they get withdrawn from service. In the meantime you can always buy and apply your own.
Accessories | Cockpit Accessories | NCC010 | Compass Roses (http://www.pooleys.com/prod_detail.cfm?product_id=192&PageNum_rs_product=1&product_category_id=0&product_sub_category_id=0)
Compass Rose : AFE - Airplan Flight Equipment (http://www.afeonline.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=890)

Whopity
18th Mar 2012, 09:15
As the Honiley VOR is virtually in the centre of England, it is quite probably the most used VOR in the country, so removal of the rose maybe an issue. Most of the Birmingham infringements do occur in the vicinity of Honiley however; the chart has always been difficult to read in this area with all the odd shaped pieces of airspace and trying to allocate the associated altitudes to them. I believe Honiley is one of the 19 VORs schedule to remain when the other 28 are removed.

snchater
18th Mar 2012, 10:05
I am an avid user of the KNS80 trying not to become a slave to the 'magenta-line'!
I have e-mailed NATS with my concerns regarding the removal of the HON compass rose from the new Southern chart ([email protected]) - I have not had received a reply though.

RTN11
18th Mar 2012, 13:26
They did the same with the SAM VOR at Southampton a few years ago. I assume it's to try and cut the clutter on a busy bit of the chart, making frequencies and other published data easier to read, but it does make teaching position fixes a bit of a pain.

I tend to transpose a magnetic north line onto the VOR, and then you at least have something to measure from for position fixing.

silverknapper
18th Mar 2012, 15:56
I know it's not the point but for your own chart one used to be able to buy large compass roses specifically for sticking on Vfr charts. I got them when I was doing my PPL as they were much larger than the standard, with numbers every 30 deg. Made for easy fixing.

RTN11
18th Mar 2012, 22:37
I know it's not the point but for your own chart one used to be able to buy large compass roses specifically for sticking on Vfr charts. I got them when I was doing my PPL as they were much larger than the standard, with numbers every 30 deg. Made for easy fixing.

These work fine, but the reason they have taken the rose off the map is because it's a very cluttered bit of space, and they wanted to make more room for frequencies and airspace levels. Sticking a rose over the top will obliterate anything underneath, making airspace levels and frequencies difficult to find. This was my experience with the SAM VOR anyway.