User Guide

Learning To Fly with Rod Machado
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Tutorial 9: VOR Navigation
Have you ever been so lost in your car
that you actually considered pulling into a
used car lot, selling the car, and using the
money to purchase a new identity? If so,
you were really lost. Getting unlost is
easy, especially in a car. You simply drive
into a gas station and ask for directions.
You can’t do that in an airplane. It attracts
way too much attention, even if you buy
gas and check the oil. Fortunately, you
don’t need to worry about getting lost in
an airplane if you know how to use a little
navigational device known as a VOR,
which stands for Very high frequency
Omnidirectional Range.
The Big Picture
VOR navigation requires two things: airborne VOR
equipment like that shown in Figure 1 and a
ground transmitting station which, from an altitude
of several thousand feet, looks like an itty-bitty
taco stand. The ground transmitter produces 360
electronic courses, each of which runs through the
center of the station as depicted in Figure 2. Each
course is aligned with a specific degree on the
compass, with 0 degrees pointing north, 90
degrees pointing east, 270 degrees pointing west,
and so on. Using your airborne VOR equipment,
you can navigate on any one of these 360 courses
while going directly to or from a VOR station.
Figure 1
VOR RECEIVER
VOR DISPLAY
AIRPLANE’S MOTION
Figure 2
VOR RADIALS