I recently required First Class Simulation's Discover Europe which includes a Piper Pacer. The package comes with a series of flight plans that were created for IFR and can be easily loaded via the menus. I'm just returning to FSX after a fairly lengthy absence, so I'd rather make the flights using VOR navigation even though they're more intended for "use AP via GPS & sit back & relax." The Pacer does have a Bendix King (at least that's what I recall the name being) radio stack with 2 Comms, 2 NAVs, ADF, AP and DME - so seems full featured

The problem I'm having is that the aircraft only has 1 HSI and it doesn't seem to have a CDI; or at least whatever I'm doing isn't enabling the CDI. I used to make intercepts from VOR radial to VOR radial with the aid of the CDI, but so far that's a no go  with this. I'm manually keying the 1st VOR coordinate from the nav log  into NAV 1 and keying the next in standby, but the active doesn't seem to enable a CDI. With only 1 HSI though, I not sure how you'd use NAV 2. I've no doubt missing something, but can't recall what that might be. If anyone could give me some feedback on this or the right procedure, it'd be much appreciated.

 

I think I figured it out and it turns out I was setting the NAVs up correctly. The flight was from Humberside UK to Rotterdam NL and the 1st VOR was CSL in the NL with a frequency of 116.50. The problem was it was too far away and the radio didn't pick up an ident code until I was somewhere between 50-100 kts  SE of Humberside. That makes me think the radio stack in the Pacer might be a bit weak for reception, but not being a real-world pilot I wouldn't really know.

What altitude were you at?

VOR (VHF) transmissions are line-of-sight and so the lower you are the shorter the range (theoretical range can be approximated by 1.25 x the square root of your height if you want to calculate it); I can't find an AIP entry for CSL (the only one I can find is in Italy) but it's entirely possible that the DOC may not be that great anyway.

Thanks for the reply Skelsey. I was at 5000 ft. I might be wrong about the CSL designation - could have been CLS. All I know is that's the 1st VOR in the flight plan included with Discover Europe and also the 1st one given when you have FSX auto-gen an IFR-VOR plan from Humberside to Rotterdam.