I see where I was confused...the radials extend from the station and not through it (hence the name radial)....so say I have my OBS set to 200 and I am flying TO a station...I'm not actually on the 200 radial, I'm on the 20 radial.

 

This statement could be correct... if by " I am flying TO a station" you mean the VOR head has a TO indication... and you are flying 200° (roughly) you will have normal sensing, and be on the 20° Radial.

 

All the TO/FROM flag indicates is whether flying the heading selected by the OBS will take you to TO or FROM the VOR.

 

True... but more than that... with the needled centered in the VOR head, it tells you what side of the VOR you are on.

VOR is one of those things that sound much more complicated in discussion than they are in actual use. Once you play around with them a bit, the discussions make much more sense. They can be very simple, but are hard to explain simply.

ahh it's all Chinese to me, think I'll just stick to my own methods, thanks anyway for the help guys, much appreciated.

 

Ok phonic_monkey... let's get you squared away by trying the "LOST Lesson" I mention above. I have tried to keep it very simple and take you step by step. Assumes you are using the Van's RV-6A. You won't actually be lost... but a good basic lesson nonetheless.

 

Program Setup:

• Clear Skies
  
• Place your RV-6 on Rwy 35, Kona Intl (PHKO). Airport located on the west side of the Big Island.
  
• Note Frequency (and Morse Code ID) of the Kamuela VOR (MUE 113.3 -- ..- .) Mousey over the VOR (on the FLIGHT map) and you will hear the tone ID. Btw the MUE VOR is located on the grounds of the Waimea Kohala Airport (PHMU).
  
• If you have a 2nd comp... go to skyvector.com, in the upper left-hand box, type in PHKO and click go (will center you on the Kona Airport).
  

Aircraft Setup:

• Lights and Radio Switches on
  
• Nav1 - dial in 113.30 in the standby box
  
• Click <-> button to swap from standby to active frequency
  
• Click NAV1 ID button (listen for morse code ID then you can shut off).
  

Procedure:

• Rotate the NAV1 VOR head OBS until the Needle Centers and the little triangle at the bottom has a right side up Triangle. When I do this, it says Course is 41°. This is my Bearing TO the MUE VOR.
  
• Takeoff, maintain runway heading (354°) and level off at 6500'MSL. Note that as you climb out, the needle will start moving to the right. This is because we are not tracking (flying a heading of) 41°... we are flying a heading that moves us left of the NAV1 course.
  

I can do one of two things at this point to get to the MUE VOR.

 

Option 1: Re-center the needle with a TO indication.

Option 2: Re-intercept the 41° course; the one that we already dialed into the VOR1 head.

 

For Option 1

 

So we re-center the needle with a TO indication. I get 60°. Now it is just a matter of keeping the needle centered. If the needle starts to move to the right, then "fly to the right"... that is, take up a heading that is slightly right of 60°... say 10° to 15° more so 70° to 75°. What I am going to do is turn to a heading of 75° because I am anticipating flying more to the left of my selected 60° OBS Heading (while making that turn from 354° to 60°). So 25° to 30° bank turn to the right... start my rollout around 65° DG heading... and level out on a heading of 75°. The needle is to the right of center in the VOR head... and will slowly start to swing back to center. Once it starts to get close to center, I turn back to a DG (magnetic) heading of 60°.

 

Now just a matter of keeping the needle centered... if the needle drifts left of center, I do "just the opposite" of the above... fly say 50° and wait for the needle to start to center up then back to flying 60°.

 

Once you get within a few miles of the VOR, the needle will start moving toward one side of the instrument or the other. Don't chase it (i.e. turn). Maintain your heading. It will peg on one side or the other (depending which side of the VOR you cross) and the TO triangle flips to a FROM indication (upside-down triangle). You are directly above the VOR and right over the top of Waimea Kohala Airport. Fly a few miles and the needle will start to center up again.

 

For Option 2

 

Not much different that Option 1... just in this case we are a bit off-course, so I will take a bigger "cut" to intercept the 41° OBS course. A 45° cut will work well... so add those two (41 & 45) and I'd use a DG heading of roughly 85° to intercept. Needle starts to swing in from the right to center and same procedure as described above.

 

========================================================

 

Let's break down the info that the VOR head gives you...

 

Let's say for example... we freeze our flight, you dial in 360° and the needle centers... what does this tell you? That you are somewhere along a North / South line that runs directly thru the center of the VOR you selected. It is that simple.

 

There is also one more piece of info to further pinpoint your location: you have that TO/FROM flag. This will tell you what side of the VOR you are on (North side or South side of the VOR in this case). Looking at just the needle centered, we know we are directly North or directly South of the VOR at this point.

 

If you see a TO indication you HAVE to be directly south of the VOR. How to confirm? If you fly North and keep the needle centered, you WILL fly over the VOR.

 

If you were to dial in the reciprocal of 360° (180° - of course) you will now see a FROM indication. If you were to draw a line starting at the VOR... draw it 180° FROM the VOR... you will be somewhere along this line. Again, this puts you on the South side of the VOR.

 

Sectional charts have that nice Compass Rose around the VOR, so that, say you printed out the skyvector area for Hawaii, you could actually draw out lines this way. I would actually do this "for real" as a student pilot to help me get a rough position fix during a cross-country flight*.

 

How far you are from the VOR is unknown. This is what DME or a crossing Radial from another VOR would tell you. Two lines intersecting (we use Radials in this case... needle centered with a FROM) give you this fix.

 

Remember I said, "we freeze our flight"? If it were possible and you could rotate the plane about its vertical axis (i.e. change the magnetic heading) the VOR head would be none the wiser. That is to say, the info presented in the VOR head would not change. It would say either 360° TO or 180° FROM (whatever you have last dialed in the OBS).

 

The VOR does not present "instantaneous" info based on your heading... trend info yes, as you will see the needle move or not move based on your heading and the Radial / Bearing you are on. But if the plane is "frozen in space", turning the plane's heading will have no effect on what is presented by the VOR head.

 

The following site: http://www.luizmonte...ng_VOR_Sim.aspx is an extremely useful tool to position your plane wherever you want on whatever heading you want to watch what happens (or doesn't happen) when you change airplane position, heading & VOR OBS settings.

 

Try the above and see how you get along... and come back with questions for anything that doesn't make sense after you try the above exercise.

 

-Rob

 

*Edit: when I said, "I would actually do this," I was referring to using an actual Sectional Chart (no skyvector years ago when I learned to fly). Btw don't let those Sectionals scare you off... use what you need to use (e.g. the VOR's compass rose... general airport location w/ respect to topography) and take your time with the other info... plenty too much stuff on those for some situations.

so say I have my OBS set to 200 and I am flying TO a station...I'm not actually on the 200 radial, I'm on the 20 radial.

thanks!

 

No, until you get to the transmitter you are on the 200 radial, flying a course of 020. Flying a "To" will be a heading 180 degrees from the radial that you are on. Once you get to the transmitter and maintain your flight, you will start to fly on the 020 radial "From" the trasmitter on a heading of 020.

 

When Fromming, the course is the same as the radial. When Toing, the course is 180 deg from the radial.

 

This statement could be correct... if by " I am flying TO a station" you mean the VOR head has a TO indication... and you are flying 200° (roughly) you will have normal sensing, and be on the 20° Radial.

 

LOL How to make things more complicated then needed... Great Ozzie's answer is right, although I understand where meshman's answer is coming from: Kaloyanic'spost simply lacked some vital info: the current heading!

 

As a rule you should always (roughly) fly the heading the OBS is showing: then you can use the VOR gauge as a commanding instrument: left is left and right is right.

 

Yeah, it's really not an easy system to explain, but it is incredibly simple to use once you do wrap your head around it.

 

It's not as complicated as it looks, it's just non-intuitive.

 

VOR is one of those things that sound much more complicated in discussion than they are in actual use. Once you play around with them a bit, the discussions make much more sense. They can be very simple, but are hard to explain simply.

 

So true!!!

 

All the TO/FROM flag indicates is whether flying the heading selected by the OBS will take you to TO or FROM the VOR.

 

That's right, but that's certainly not all...! It's also very important for your situational awareness. It tells you where you are in a glance. It constantly tells you on which side of the VOR you are. Also: when I do not fly straight to or over a VOR (and I am using it for triangulation), I always look for the TO FROM indicator to switch because then I immediately know where I am (on the 'line of ambiguity', so the radial +90 or -90 degrees from the selected one). So I don't even have to touch the OBS knob to know EXACTLY where I am.

Another nice one: a quick glance at the TO FROM indicator and the CDI, without touching the OBS knob and no matter what radial is selected, immediately shows you where you are: here is a snippet from my second VOR tutorial:

 

You can divide the VOR gauge in four quarters: top right, bottom right, bottom left and top left. You ALWAYS are on a radial in the quarter opposite of the CDI and the TO/FROM indicator. So with just one glance you can forget about the other 270 radials: you always are on one of the 90 radials in the quarter the CDI (which divides the gauge in half) and TO/FROM indicator (which divides the remaining half in half, leaving you with a quarter) do NOT point to.

 

Using the same 'trick' you can also quickly find out where you roughly need to go to fly to the VOR (again without touching the OBS and no matter what radial is selected): that's the quarter where the CDI and the TO/FROM indicator are pointing towards.

VOR is one of those things that sound much more complicated in discussion than they are in actual use. Once you play around with them a bit, the discussions make much more sense. They can be very simple, but are hard to explain simply.

 

LOL so true. This reminds me of a certain type of college professor -- you understand a topic, but after he finishes discussing it, you no longer understand it. To that kind of teacher I was tempted to say, "Just hand me the book and tell me when the final exam is."

 

(Actually I was tagging along in a multiplayer session last night when somebody was discussing just this topic, and flying through a real-world exercise.)

This discussion makes me miss TACAN/DME :-).

nice info guys, interesting read

Kaloyanic'spost simply lacked some vital info: the current heading!

Yea sorry, when I said I had my OBS set to 200 and I am flying TO a station, I forgot to imply that I was on course :)

 

So basically I just need to add a disclaimer to my tutorial saying that the TO/FROM flag only shows VOR Station position when you are on course (needle centered)? And maybe mention how it points towards the radial, and not the station...

Rather than TO/FROM, think of it as a Radial/Reciprocal indicator. Whatever bearing you have dialed in with the needle centered...

 

If the arrow points down you are on that radial.

If the arrow points up you are on it's reciprocal.

nice info guys, interesting read

 

Yea sorry, when I said I had my OBS set to 200 and I am flying TO a station, I forgot to imply that I was on course :)

 

So basically I just need to add a disclaimer to my tutorial saying that the TO/FROM flag only shows VOR Station position when you are on course (needle centered)? And maybe mention how it points towards the radial, and not the station...

 

Hm, yes... when the needle is centered and you are flying (roughly) the same heading, then you can indeed say that a TO indiciation means you are flying towards the VOR and a FROM indication means you are flying away from it. But only when the needle is more or less centered and you are more or less flying the OBS heading.

 

I've been thinking ALL FREAKIN' DAY how to explain VOR as simple as possible... but I just can't come up with the right words. VOR is so easy to use but so hard to explain... For instance: in your tutorial, which I just read again, I noticed something else that isn't quite right (sorry!!! ). The heading you are flying (284) isn't the radial you are flying on: it's the reciprocal of the heading you are flying on... You are actually flying on and intercepting the 104 radial... Almost everywhere where you mention the 284 radial, you should actually talk about the 104 radial... Your BEARING is 284... LOL It is freaking me out that I can't explain this in a few words.

 

I see RoboRay posted a nice tip while I was typing! Although even that one can become confusing when you actually try to explain it (because you never say you are flying ON a reciprocal... You usually dial in the reciprocal while you are flying ON a radial to get TO a VOR station. Geez......... LOL )

 

I will keep on thinking about what's the best way to explain VOR in as little words as possible...

thanks J van E, yea I need to edit that part as well....before I was thinking the course you are traveling on is the radial...but now realize after our discussion that often times its not...it's the reciprocal if you see the TO flag on when the needle is centered. (obviously not a real pilot here...im self taught from fs2000 days :lol: )

Some of you might want to check out this:

 

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/376947-complete-vor-tutorial-words-only-no-pictures-edit-please/

 

This discussion makes me miss TACAN/DME :-).

 

On a serious side-note... one thing as a civilian pilot that I appreciated about TACAN stations is - there would always be DME colocated with it... not so with with your VHF VORs.

 

I will keep on thinking about what's the best way to explain VOR in as little words as possible...

 

There's not always a "best way" Jeroen... what one explanation might work for many may not work with others. You do your best... and if that does not work... someone still does not "get it", you take a different tack.... with the hope something (or some way) you try makes sense to the person you are explaining to... and maybe with a little Q & A, bracket in on what aspect they are having trouble with. Determine how much understanding they have (no experience to ?) and build from there. That is partly why these tutorials are so rough to write up.