wbeard52

Did not both CDI's center with your example? I never said it would tell you that a certain heading will cause you to intercept that course TO or radial FROM before or after the VOR. I simply stated the CDI would in fact center and is great for situational awareness. How would the "common" method be better especially since I didn't reference a DME in my post like you did. Using only the VOR how can you be certain that your selected turn left or right will center the needle before station passage? The simple fact is... you can't. You could be 1 NM from station passage or 50 NM... the indications would be the same especially if you're at the same angle to the selected course. The common method has more steps than this simpler method. Plus the common method has this misconception called reverse sensing. Terminology correction from the quote: The 090 radial inbound is the 270 course TO the station. You should state the 270 course TO the station and not mix radials with TO's. It is always a radial FROM or a course TO and never the opposite. Take a look at your picture again. The VOR would show a FROM indication with a left deflection and the selected heading will infact intercept the course TO or radial FROM the station. Thanks for proving my point. I appreciate it. It is not within the confines of this discussion to determine an intercept heading that will intercept either the course TO or radial FROM but I am willing to listen if you have an idea of how to do that easily only using the VOR indicator...no DMEs. A heading of 030, 045, 060, etc will intercept the course TO the station or radial FROM the station. I never stated differently. Again, proved my point. In fact, a 089 track will also intercept the course just take a greater distance. Again, I'm all ears if your common method of paralleling the track and then turning left of right will solve this problem for you.-------------------------------------------------------------------------There is absolutely a way to tell if a given heading will intercept the given course TO or radial FROM the station using only the VOR station (no DME... no GPS... no vectors) using the VOR needle and a RMI needle. Curious read my post here: Using the RMI and HSI for situational awareness but that is beyond the scope of this article.

For the real pilots on this forum, what is fundamentally wrong with this "unusual" method? If a pilot can determine the correct heading to intercept the selected radial (after tuning and identifying) what is wrong with that? Could it not be a great situational backup of where not to fly on a VFR flight? For example, anything east of the 360 radial of the ABC VOR is restricted airspace.For the real instrument rated pilots on this forum. Have you ever been given a vector from ATC that was wrong? Is the pilots life in danger if ATC errs in their vector or their life? What if we could verify the vectored heading is correct for the route they cleared us for? N123AB fly heading 320 intercept the 270 degree radial from ABC VOR proceed on course. Have you ever gotten a clearance like that? How about this... N123AB turn right heading 095 intercept the final approach course cleared ILS 12L approach. If we had set up the VOR correctly, we can quickly verify the heading ATC has given us.What about this situation? You are south of the runway on the downwind leg for runway 09 heading west. You are getting radar vectors for the ILS 09 approach; how would you setup the VOR indicator? Any common sense pilot would set the inbound course of 090 into the VOR even though the airplane is heading west (270). What would the needle show... a left turn or a right turn? If you answered a left turn, you would be correct but if you think about it... a left turn from a heading of west will make you travel south and away from the final approach course. (But you followed that damn needle!... It has to be correct). If you were to look at those shaded heading under that needle, it would clearly show a northerly heading to intercept the course and not a southerly heading. No reverse sensing with this easy method like there is with the more common method.What if there was a national security concern and GPS was shut down by the government? To make matters worse, there is no radar coverage in your area of travel. How are you going to verify that you haven't passed that intersection on the victor airway where you were supposed to turn or take the chance of running into the side of the mountain? Simple, use the second VOR and set it up for the radial FROM or course TO (depending on the situation) the low enroute chart calls for and let your finger doing the walking. If your current heading is shaded, you have not passed the intersection but if you current heading on the second VOR is not shaded you have gone too far.No math... no figuring out which radial you are on to triangulate your position... just using the VOR the easiest way possible for maximum situational awareness. These are just some of my real life examples that I have been given flying in the U.S. airspace. This "simple" method allows us to have more time for the most important activity in a real pilots world... seeing and avoiding other aircraft and terrain.