VOR line of sight?

[Midcon113 9]

Hi All,

Was just messing with Flight School to get a feel for the Cherokee (I anticipate FSW's will be substantially more complete) and am flying down the NW coast of Washington State. I'm tuned to the HQM VOR on both Nav 1 and 2. And I'm noticing that - even though I'm getting closer to the navaid, I'm occasionally losing the signal, then reacquiring it. I'm at 1,500' so I'm pretty low.

Is this:

1. A Bug
2. An LOS issue with the VOR

HQM is a high-altitude VOR I believe, but the terrain here is pretty mountainous, and I'm just curious as to whether any kind of LOS modeling has been done for radio navaids. Any thoughts?

Thanks!

[jcomm 5,939]

Probably not line of site but rather the "cone of confusion" ?

[Midcon113 9]

1 hour ago, jcomm said:

Probably not line of site but rather the "cone of confusion" ?

Should have clarified - I was like 40nm from the station. I'd expect that flying over the station, but not necessarily that far out?

[Torg Smith 31]

It is line of site. HQM is a high altitude VOR. See this Wiki entry for information. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHF_omnidirectional_range

Quote

From 1,000 feet AGL up to and including 14,500 feet AGL at radial distances out to 40 NM. From 14,500 AGL up to and including 18,000 feet at radial distances out to 100 NM. From 18,000 feet AGL up to and including 45,000 feet AGL at radial distances out to 130 NM. From 45,000 feet AGL up to and including 60,000 feet at radial distances out to 100 NM.

 

[jcomm 5,939]

The 40nm was an important element of data... Yes, definitely due to the signal propagation ( a kind of inverted top ), if you were at 40nm...

[Midcon113 9]

5 hours ago, jcomm said:

The 40nm was an important element of data... Yes, definitely due to the signal propagation ( a kind of inverted top ), if you were at 40nm...

Yes definitely!

10 hours ago, Torg Smith said:

It is line of site. HQM is a high altitude VOR. See this Wiki entry for information. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHF_omnidirectional_range

 

So that begs the question - has this always been modeled by the FS engine? Admittedly I don't usually fly low and slow and even when I do, I'm typically using the GPS for nav. Only recently have I had a desire to go back to the basics of DR and simple instrument navigation (GPS is great but what do you do when the box fails?) so maybe it's been in the sim and I just haven't noticed? If so, that's a really nice bit of realism!

[Torg Smith 31]

Yeah, MS really tried to capture as much as they could. You can take the simulation experiance as far as you want to.

[n4gix 4,947]

10 hours ago, Midcon said:

Yes definitely!

So that begs the question - has this always been modeled by the FS engine?

They have since FS9 at least...

[Midcon113 9]

That's what you get for relying on the GPS too much...

Thanks guys!