CPM.

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W
hen I r st star ted aviating with ight
simulator s, I would ascend into the vir tual
skies and simply y around the air por t
from which I had taken off. Id pr actice my takeoff
and landing skills and y around the agpole, but
never much more than that. Oh, sure, Id venture
out fur ther and would land at other air por ts, but
the air por ts where I landed were har dly ever my
intended destination. Thats because I didnt know
how to navigate.
I tried reading some books on the subject (before Al Gore invented
the internet), but I felt the books and articles I had read were written
for people who already knew how to navigate. This was no help to
me, whatsoever. I called my brother who had taken ying lessons and,
with his help and considerable patience, I nally gured it out.
In this article, I will try to explain how to navigate through the
virtual skies using VORs. I will use real sectional charts to show you
how I create my ight plans. For me, using real sectional charts adds
more realism to the ight sim experience. I realize that Microsoft
Flight Sim incorporates a tool that creates a ight plan for you;
however, in my opinion, that is far from fun. So sit back, relax, and
enjoy this lesson I have the airplane.
Whats What
VOR stands for Very High Frequency Omni-directional Range.
Basically, its a ground-based radio station that emits a precise
signal in every direction. A VOR radio in your airplane picks up
these signals and modies a panel display that provides directional
guidance while you are ying toward or away from the VOR
transmitter.
VOR to VOR Navigation Training
BY JOHN SHANKLAND

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The VOR1 and VOR2 gauges are located on the right side of
the panel. As denoted by the illustration, a bearing ring is mounted
around the outside of the gauge. This bearing ring is not to be
confused with a Heading Indicator gauge! The purpose of the bearing
ring is to select a particular radial from the VOR transmitter, and this
selection can be adjusted with the Omni-directional Bearing Selector
(OBS) knob on each receiver.
This is how it works. Imagine
the VOR transmitter is the hub
of a bicycle wheel that has 360
spokes. These spokes are called
radials and each radial represents
one degree of a complete circle.
With the NAV radio you tune in
the frequency of the VOR that you
want to y toward or away from
and then follow the specic radial
of your choice.
For purposes of this training I will be using the default Cessna 172
in FS2004. Also, I will be using real section charts for the area where
I live. I must apologize because I live in the Midwest United States
which means its really at and boring. No magnicent mountains
or other unique terrain features. Come to think of it this is a perfect
venue for this lesson because there are NO distinguishing features
ANYWHERE! Because the landscape is so bland, its easy to get off
course, and this is where radio navigation becomes extremely useful.
Cockpit Familiarization
As if it wasnt already hard
enough to y and keep track of
the Big Six gauges on your
panel while ying, Im now
going to add a few more. I took
these screenshots in the 2D panel
because its easier to see; however,
if you like ying with the virtual
cockpit, these same gauges are
there as well, although it might
vary slightly from the 2D view.
Ive highlighted the instruments
we are going to use in this lesson.
We will start with the radios;
after all, we wont be ying to
any VORs if we dont use these.
On your radio stack you will have
two communication radios and
two Navigation radios. Well call
the navigation radios NAV1 and
NAV2. You will see an Ident
button on each radio. When a
VOR is tuned into the NAV1 or
NAV2 radios, you can identify the
correct VOR by pulling this Ident
knob and listening for a particular series of tones. In the real world,
if you tune in the VOR and you dont hear anything when you pull
the Ident knob theres a good chance that VOR is out of service. We
wont run into this problem in FS2004.
Along with the VOR radios well be using Distance Measuring
Equipment or DME. Its located at the top right corner of the
2D panel. This handy little display will help you a couple different
ways -- it can show how far away you are from the VOR, and it can
display your ground speed in knots. In
some aircraft, it can also indicate the
approximate ight time to arrive at the
VOR. Since you will have two different
VORs tuned into the NAV radios, there
is a knob to switch the DME between
the two radios.
THE VOR IN ALL ITS GLORY
THE DME DISPLAY. A VERY
HANDY DISPLAY INDEED!
Creating a flight plan
The ight plan I created for this lesson was made using real
sectional charts. Well be taking off from a small airport north of
Indianapolis (KTYQ) and landing at an airport south of Chicago
(KIKK). In real life, its pretty much a straight shot, but I threw a little
jog into the ight plan to spice it up.
CHECK THE LOCATION OF THE VOR RECEIVERS IN
RELATION TO THE BIG SIX
I create my ight plans on my laptop and then set it next to me as I
y. This does two things for me one, it provides all the information
I need at a glance and, two, makes me feel high tech!
If youd like to create your ight plans as I do, you can purchase
sectional charts and other planning and navigation aids from your
local municipal airport.
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I laid out my sectional and my navigation plotting ruler and went
to work. The rst leg of my ight was from Indianapolis Executive
(KTYQ) Runway 36 to the Danville VOR. According to the sectional,
I should be ying a heading of 281. From there, I would backtrack a
little to the Boiler VOR. Notice that there is a route already established
on the chart between these two VORs. These routes are called
Victor Airways (VA) and you can see numerous VAs on a sectional
connecting various VORs. The VA in this case told me that I needed
to y a heading of 053 from the Danville VOR to the Boiler VOR.
The nal leg of our ight will take us from the Boiler VOR to Greater
Kankakee Airport (KIKK) which happens to have a VOR smack dab
in the middle of the airport! We will be landing on Runway 34.
Lets go flying!
Nothing happens! Why? Well, were sitting on the ground. Once
we get airborne and gain some altitude, the VOR receivers will spring
to life I promise! We now have clearance for departure on Runway
36 heading west. We check to ensure the pattern is clear, ease out onto
the runway, get lined up, ease the throttle forward, and off we go!
After establishing a positive rate of climb and retracting the aps,
we climb out to 1500 ft. Upon reaching altitude, we turn to a heading
of 281. Soon we will see the DME display showing a readout for the
Danville VOR.
I HAVE HEADINGS, VOR RADIO FREQUENCIES AND
IDENTIFYING CODES, AND DISTANCES AT THE READY
After completing a thorough preight check, we release the parking
brakes and taxi to Runway 36. At the Hold Short marker, we go
through the takeoff checklist and note that everything seems to be
good with the airplane. We tune the NAV1 radio to a frequency of
111.0 and set the OBS to a bearing of 281. This is for the Danville
VOR. Next, we set the NAV2 radio to 115.1 and the OBS to a bearing
of 053 for the Boiler VOR.
LINED UP AND READY TO GO!
This is when we use the Ident button on the Nav1 radio. When the
Ident button is activated, we will hear a series of Morse Code tones.
According to our ight plan, it should be dash dot dot pause dash dot
pause dot dot dot dash. If thats what we hear, then were tuned into
the correct VOR. If not, we need to re-check our frequency settings.
As VOR1 becomes active, we can see that were on a heading of
281 and tracking the 281 radial toward the Danville VOR. In other
words, we are ying TO the VOR. We know this by looking at the
gauge itself. Notice that there is a small arrow pointing up at the
bottom of the gauge. We can y either toward or away from a VOR.
The key is to make sure that we have the correct radial selected with
the OBS.
CLIMBING OUT ON A HEADING OF 281
THINGS LOOK A LITTLE DIFFERENT IN THE VIRTUAL COCKPIT VIEW.
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If you have MS Flight Simulator create your ight plans for you,
it automatically selects the headings for you, but if you create ight
plans as I do, you have to be wary of which radial you select. Many
times I would put my straight edge in the center of the VOR of the
departure airport and use that radial. If you look at the route earlier in
the article, the red line from KTYQ to the center of the Danville VOR
looks like it lies on the 99 radial. Well, it is IF Im ying FROM
that particular VOR. However, if Im ying TO a VOR, I need to
use the reciprocal of the 099 radial, or 281. If you look at the VOR
diagram earlier in the article, youll see that the reciprocal heading for
270 is 090. Likewise, the reciprocal for 360 is 180.
When we took off, we assumed a heading of 281 and pretty much
hit right on the radial that we were supposed to be on. What happens
when we arent lined up exactly on the radial and we need to nd it? As
long as we are ying TO the VOR, we need to y to the line in order
to intercept the radial we need. To illustrate this, I took a little detour to
the left to get off course. The needle in the middle of the VOR1 gauge
moved to the right, indicating that we are to the left of the 281 radial
and we need to turn right to intercept it. As we get closer to the 281
radial, the needle swings back to the center as the illustrations show.
STARTING MY LEFT TURN
NOTICE THE NEEDLE ON VOR 1 HAS MOVED TO THE RIGHT OF CENTER GETTING READY TO TURN ONTO THE 053 RADIAL FOR THE BOILER VOR.
NOTICE THE HEADING INDICATOR AND THE BEARING RING ON THE
VOR 2 RECEIVER. AFTER THE TURN, THEYLL BOTH READ THE SAME
ONCE THE NEEDLE HITS CENTER, ROLL BACK TO A HEADING
OF 281. ROLL OUT OF YOUR TURN A LITTLE EARLY SO YOU
DONT OVERSHOOT THE RADIAL
COMMENCING A RIGHT TURN TO FLY TO THE LINE TO GET
BACK ON COURSE
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We stay on the 281 radial until about 1.5 nautical miles from the
Danville VOR, and then we turn to a heading of 053. Since we
were so close to the Danville VOR and are now following the Victor
Airway for the Boiler VOR when we roll out of our turn, we are
exactly on the 053 radial. We switch the DME over so it starts picking
up the Boiler VOR. With a quick pull of the Ident knob, we conrm
that we have the correct VOR frequency dialed into the NAV2 radio.
When we are about one and a half nautical miles from the Boiler
VOR, we roll into a left turn and roll out onto the 311 radial for the
Kankakee VOR.
As you can see from the screenshots, this is a VERY FLAT place.
There are no landmarks, mountains, hills, rivers, or anything else for
that matter that might help us determine where were at. This is why
learning how to navigate using the VOR system can be so helpful
and fun!
About twenty miles from the Kankakee airport we make a left
turn and intercept the 340 radial. We do this because the VOR
sits smack dab in the middle of the airport and were looking to
land on Runway 34. This will give us our best chance of making
a straight-in approach. We intercept the 340 radial and follow it
in to the Greater Kankakee Airport and, sure enough, the runway
lies dead ahead! Having done the landing checklist before, its
just a matter of a few small adjustments here and there and we
can set this puppy on the ground!
At the conclusion of the turn, its time to reset the NAV1 radio
to the Kankakee VOR. We dial in the frequency of 111.60 and the
needle quickly swings into action. We know from our ight plan that
we need to y a heading of 311 from the Boiler VOR all the way to
Kankakee, so we set the OBS to a bearing of 311.
Its relatively a short little jaunt from the Danville VOR to the
Boiler VOR. So far, everything is going according to plan.
At this point, were ying in fair weather conditions, but if it were
bad weather, we may have to change our destination airport. When
Ive done that in the past, I would get out my sectionals and re-route
my trip on the y (no pun intended!). That is always a challenge, but
very rewarding when a potential disaster can be avoided with some
quick and cool-headed thinking.
Bringing It In
ROLLING OUT ONTO THE 311 RADIAL. NOTICE THE DME IS STILL SET TO
THE BOILER VOR. THE HEADING INDICATOR AND THE VOR 1 BEARING
WILL READ THE SAME AT THE COMPLETION OF THE TURN.
RESETTING THE NAV 1 RADIO TO 111.60 AS WELL AS SETTING THE VOR
1 OBS SO IT WILL TRACK THE 311 RADIAL OUT OF KANKAKEE
LINED UP ON FINAL!
TOUCHDOWN!
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Debrief
Now that were safely on the ground, we can compare our ight
plan with the actual route we ew. Its important to keep in mind that
I veered off course on purpose to show you how to nd the radial we
were looking for. Its almost a mirror image!
Im pleased with the results of this ight. Its always fun to sit back
and review your ight and say, I did a good job on that one! or
Where the heck is this place? This airport wasnt on the ight plan!
Either way, just have fun doing it!
With everything these days moving towards new-fangled GPS
systems and so forth, I nd it very exciting and rewarding to plan my
ights using real world sectionals and navigation aids. I admit that,
when I rst started, I didnt think I would be able to do it; however, I
stuck with it and now I y all over the place using the VOR system.
I hope you enjoyed this lesson and want to continue to hone your
navigation skills. If you have questions, the ight sim community is
full of helpful individuals who will gladly take the time to assist you.
The internet is also a great place to nd resources on the subject
Happy ying!
ACTUAL ROUTE
PROPOSED ROUTE
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