Question about a VOR
 

Good morning

Say, for example, you know that the heading from one airport to another is 200 degrees (assuming no wind), would that be the heading that you have the arrow pointing to on the VOR, with the needle showing you whether you were you left or right of track?

Sorry if this is a silly question!

Regards

B

Good Morning!

Yes, it is silly ...

First question: where is the VOR?

Answer to all your questions.

http://www.pprune.org/professional-p...-software.html

Disclaimer, I have no connection with Steve Oddy than being a satisfied user.

At the airport

see if this helps How to Navigate Using a VOR: 9 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow

When the needle is pointing at the VOR it's pointing at the VOR.

Yes, but is that with reference to true bearing or magnetic? :8

I assume you mean track (VORs are nothing to do with headings*), but yes, if the track from A to B is 200 degrees, you would place that at the top of the VOR instrument. That would be the radial from A, then follow the indicator that tells you whether you are left or right.

*Having said that, it can be useless without heading information.

Phil

You need the magnetic heading (or selected radial that you are going to intercept) not track to the VOR set on the instrument itself, the VOR doesn't know what the wind is. Then make a rough allowance for drift on your compass heading and see how it pans out. Don't sweat the numbers, all you need to be doing is tracking down your selected VOR radial and if you are far enough away the allowance for wind will probably change anyway.

To amplify a bit, if you want to use the aid as a command instrument, you dial up the magnetic ground track outbound from the reference VOR station (location A in Paco's example). 'Command instrument' just means that e.g. you fly right when the needle is deflected to the right. For example, if the magnetic track from A to B is 200 deg, dial that into the omni bearing selector (rotating scale), then fly (or intercept) the track ('radial') from B to A keeping the needle centred.

That's all very simplifed, and references such as those noted earlier are well worth a read.

Doing radionav one should always be precise! If assumed VOR is on RWY DEST, wind zero and HDG from DEP to DEST is 200, then you fly INBOUND VOR RADIAL 020 -> bottom of needle to 020, flag TO (bad example to remember, due to the 200 - 020).

Are you one of these magic pilots that can fly to within a degree? I bow to your abilities.

CH, before the OP gets confused it's worth pointing out that either of our settings will work, if the course deviation indicator is interpreted appropriately.

I have always been under the impression that VOR 'radials' are strictly magnetic tracks outbound, so in your example I would announce that I was 'inbound on the 200 radial' and, of course, my heading would be 020.

Why are you flying back home ;-) ? The OP question was regarding a heading of 200 from departure to destination VOR and if you do so, you fly inbound on physical VOR radial 020, correct.

Correct. Tecman all VOR radials are magnetic. I think where people get confused is flying inbound to VOR's, outbound never seems to be a problem as you are flying the physical radial give or take a few degrees for tracking. In your example above CH putting it into real life I've heard people inbound on the 020 radial call that they are inbound on the 200 radial, as of course that would be their heading.

Well, I do sometimes come home:). But I see that you assumed the VOR to be at the remote destination, which is fine and does bring you inbound on the 020 radial with a heading of 200, +/- drift correction if there were any.

The terminology I was trying to underline for the OP is that radials are ONLY outbound magnetic tracks from the VOR, and that one can be inbound or outbound on a given radial.

Thing, I made that precise point about magnetic tracks and radials in the my first post. The divergence in examples came from assuming a different start/end point for the flight.

Assuming that the VOR is either at the departure, or destination airfield, Yes, except that, if you go off track, the left/right needle will show which way to go to get back on track.


MJ:ok:

Ps. There are no silly questions, just confusing answers. ;)

Question about a VOR
 

..........

You can get yourself into more trouble than you'd ever think possible with a VOR unless your aircraft is pointing/flying in the general direction you're tuning. It gets real confusing if you don't. With an HSI, you don't have this problem.

http://flighttraining.aopa.org/image...t/1294vor3.jpg

http://www.pilotfriend.com/training/...v/images/6.gif

I believe VOR's in northern Canada & Alaska are based on True N due to the rapid changes of variation because of proximity to the mag N pole and all that...