MSFS: VOR Navigation Basics in the Cessna 152 - Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020

hey this is kip and in this video we're going to learn about vors and how to navigate using them in microsoft flight simulator 2020. so first of all what is a vor well it stands for vhf omnidirectional range sounds like a lot but vhf part is just the specific range of frequencies that the vor transmits on vhf you may have heard that before from things like analog television signals fm radio signals and so on vors just happen to use that same range of radio frequencies and the o and vor stands for omnidirectional that means just in all directions so this equipment the vor it actually emits in 360 degrees and we can use these radio frequencies tune into them and the equipment inside our aircraft will let us fly to and from these vors on a specific heading and here on skyvector.com i have the world vfr map pulled up and this blue compass rose represents the area around the vor so whenever you see this blue compass rose you know that a vor is in the middle of it so here's one here called the san marcos vor near santa barbara over here to the west we have the moro bay vor that's next to the san luis obispo airport then over here we have the fellowes vor this is on a mountain range over here and is not specifically next to any airport so let's talk about how a vor works in terms of navigating so the easiest way to think about vors is to think about them as a giant wheel and the center of the wheel is the vor itself but the radio transmissions coming from the wheel are the spokes and there are 360 spokes coming from the center radiating from the center and we call those each a radial and you can think of each one of these spokes almost like its own highway and you can choose to fly on one of these if you want to from the vor or to the vor so let's pretend that we're flying from the exact center of the wheel the fellowes vor on a zero nine zero heading with no wind we would say that we are tracking the zero nine zero radial outbound which means from the fellowes vor we could also turn around and fly from the outside straight to the fellowes vor tracking the zero nine zero radial inbound so if our plane is located here which radial are we on okay well we draw the line okay we're on the zero three zero radial cool what if our plane is over here but we're heading west what radial are we on well we're still on the three zero zero radial we just happen to be flying to the west that doesn't mean that we're not on the radial we may be choosing to not track the radial out or inbound you know fly perfectly on that spoke or highway but at any moment we are on a specific radial as long as we're in range of the vor and when we're flying a vor based flight path we will be choosing which radial we want to fly on inbound or outbound each leg of our flight so let's go ahead and plan a flight from san luis obispo down here to the santa barbara airport and we see there are two other vors near the santa barbara airport so what we're going to do is go ahead and plan this by first right-clicking on san luis obispo adding that by clicking the plan button and then the flight plan up here we can see that set as our departure then down here i'm going to right click on santa barbara airport and click plan and that sets it as our destination so this line here the magenta line this represents what we would fly if we were just doing a direct route using gps so how do we navigate this using vors well we know the vrs have a limited range and we know what we can do with vors is fly precisely to one of them on a specific radial that leads to or from the vor so i'm going to go ahead and first pick this vor right next to us moro bay vor is right next to the airport we're departing from we will definitely be able to tune into it may within range from it and then we can see that if we just use that one vor we could potentially get all the way to santa barbara just by flying the one two one radial from the morro bay vor and flying on that for 67 miles and then we would see the santa barbara airport now tracking 67 miles might be challenging it's nice to have some more points that we get to so i would like to just add another point so we know when we get close enough to santa barbara and this also will make it a little safer for us in the case that we lose the signal of the more obey vor you know 67 miles doesn't sound like a lot if we know that they can work for up to 150 or 200 miles but say i'm not super familiar with the terrain or i've never used the vor all the way to santa barbara so what i could do to be safe is just add another vor to my flight plan so i'm going to pick the gaviota vor and then go ahead and hit plan there as well so in sky vector sometimes it'll pick like a departure for you a departure procedure i don't want that so i'm double clicking on on this avila 4 and i'm removing it to make sure that it doesn't try to use that and then this t261 also got added i'm going to get rid of that as well and hit enter and you can see that it brings back this calculated course of 126 degrees and that represents the 126 radial that will fly outbound from the vor step one is to depart from san luis obispo and tune into the moro bay vor so that is 112.4 and we're going to set that up in our navigation radio we're going to take the 1 2 6 radial outbound so we're going to fly outbound on the 126 radial until we get in range of the gaviota vor now once we get in range of the gaviota vor and pass it we want to fly outbound on the 101 radial and that'll take us directly to santa barbara so this is a flight plan we're going to start with we're going to load in using the cessna 152 and we're going to fly this all right so here we are at the san luis obispo airport on the ramp we are in the cessna 152 and if you haven't seen the inside of this aircraft it's probably much simpler than what you're used to seeing there's no garmin gps in here there's no gps at all and there's no autopilot so all we have to go off of are our two navigation radios right here and we're gonna use the navigation radio number one which is coupled to this instrument right here which is called the cdi or coarse deviation indicator so the first thing we're going to do is put in the two radio frequencies we'll be using on this flight and those two are the two vor nav frequencies so right here we're going to put in the moro bay vor that's the first one we're gonna use as we leave the san luis obispo area and so now to swap to that frequency and make it active you just hit this little swap button right here that'll move standby to the active frequency and as soon as we do that you'll see the cdi change the needle has moved to the left it now says nav and it's lit up right here and then this little flag shows up this little arrow that says from on it and we'll get into what that means in just a second but first let's go ahead and change our standby frequency to the second vor we're going to use which is the gaviota vor so we put 113.8 in our standby frequency right here so back in sky vector we remember up here we had moved this waypoint out here just so we could see the radial more clearly and actually if we move it out of the way we can actually see this teal line right here actually also refers to the one two six radial that's because that's drawn between the vors that's drawn between the moro bay vr and the gavietto vor so they're showing us our reference for our reference here conveniently uh it's showing us those radials so now one two six how do we define that well there's a knob right here on the cdi called obs and that stands for omni bearing selector so that means you can select any bearing using this and we're going to go ahead and twist this until the 126 radial is at the top where this yellow arrow is pointed to so when you first start turning this and i'm turning it with my mouse wheel it's going to jump 10 degrees at a time if you click it it'll also jump 10 degrees at a time sometimes it'll go one but most of the time it seems to jump 10. to get it to go one degree at a time the only option right now is to click and hold so when i click and hold it's going to jump 10 but then it's going to keep turning in smaller increments so because we want a 6 at the end i'm just going to turn it until we get to a 6 just to set that up and then we'll turn it 10 at a time after that so i'm gonna click and hold and then let go when it's right around the six i think i get a little bit closer there we go so that's probably a six right there and now that i have this six dial then i can dial in the one at two so it's one two six so now i'm just gonna use my mouse wheel and keep scrolling until i get to one two six so one two six right there so that's pretty uh precise so now we've defined the radial that we want to use and basically when we start flying this needle right here will reflect if we are on course or not so if the needle is to the right we need to fly to the right and the needles to the left we need to fly to the left so we'll do more on that once we get flying but i'm going to go ahead and set my altimeter and then i'm going to take off and we'll be on our way all right we have 40 45 50 and rotate all right we're up airspeed's good we're gonna keep going pitch 475 knots there we go 75 looking good all right continue for south departures now we're able to make our turn and we want to turn to one two zero it's directly behind us go ahead and turn to the left to get out there so now that we've taken off and we have the one two six radial set in our obs we want to track that radial outbound so the first step is to turn to fly a heading of one two six so that we'll be flying parallel to the radial that we wanna track okay so now that we're at one two zero or one two six roughly and we see that the needle right here is to the right we know that the radial is to our right so we're flying parallel to that radial right now but we wanna intercept the radial so now that we've been parallel we're going to turn to intercept and we generally do that at a 45 degree angle so now we're at 45 degrees because right here see this little notch right here we have the 126 marker right on that so that means we are heading at a 45 degree angle to it and so now what we'll watch for is for this needle right here on the cdi to come in to the center and before it gets all the way to the center we kind of want to roll back to that one two six heading so we don't overshoot it but if we do overshoot it we'll just turn right and it'll be going right back towards the needle we'll just make small adjustments and you'll see that you have to make those small adjustments throughout the flight and it's nice to be at a 45 degree angle just because you really limit how fast that needle will move in you want it to be coming in slow enough so that you can react to it and like it is right now since it's coming toward the middle i'm going to start banking to the left again to slow it down ever so slowly as it gets towards the middle we want to make it so when it gets to the middle we are on that one two six heading that's how we'll make sure to not overshoot it so it's coming in pretty quick now so i'm gonna make sure to bank a little more get over towards that one two six heading down here on our heading indicator it's pretty centered so i'm going to go and turn us left to that 126 heading and we're just going to try to hold that heading and now because there's winds you know wind will be pushing us left or right slightly off course we'll have to make small adjustments as we fly so just keep your eye on the needle and make sure that we're actually going on the right course all right so now that we're on our out let's talk about the to and from a flag that shows up on the cdi right here so because the cdi shows the needle in the middle that means that we're tracking the radial it shows a from flag because we are on a radial outbound from the vor we're heading from the morrow bay vor on the one two six radial and we know we're on that radial because we've tuned the cdi to have the radial at the top we're at the one two six radial at the top here and when the needle is centered that means that we are tracking that radial and we're on that course now what i'm going to do is go ahead and change our frequency over to the gaviota vor which is the one we're headed to and when we change it take a look at what happens to the cdi i'm going to go ahead and switch the frequency right now and it reset and now it's back on so you may have noticed that the needle shifted a little bit more to the middle the reason for that is that it's so much further away that it's less precise so it's less sensitive as we get closer and closer it's going to waver more to the left and right and be harder to keep in the middle the closer we get until eventually when we pass over the vor it'll go really hard to one side and then it'll come back into the middle and you may have also noticed that the flag now flipped to say two and that's indicating that we're heading towards the vor not away from it so we're on the same heading and we're on the same track that we're following because we're basically drawing a straight line our flight plan from the morrow bay vor down to the gaviota vor so of course we're still right on track when we were flying outbound from the morrow bay vor we were actually on the one two six radial remember that you can think of them as kind of physically being in that location now that we've switched over to the gaviota vor we need to talk about things in relation to the gaviota vors radials and we are not on the one two six radial of the gaviota vor that's because the one two six radial from the gaviota vor is located here at a one two six heading from the vor so what radial are we on right now well if you just look at the one that's on the opposite side that's the radial we're on right now we're not on the one two six we're actually on the three zero six so we can't possibly be on the one two six radial because the one two six radial is southeast of gavio to vor what we need to remember is that when the two flag is shown and the needle is centered we look at the bottom of the cdi to know what radial we were on which in this case is the 306 radial so what we're going to do now is i've gotten a little bit off course so i'm going to go ahead and turn to the left i'm going to bring that needle back to the center keep on that one two six heading roughly just keeping uh going left and right as i need to to keep the needle centered and now just checking our flight plan again remember that when we get to and we actually pass over the vor and we have that from flag what we're gonna do is change our radial to one zero one and when we follow the one zero one radial that will bring us directly over the santa barbara airport and then we can just visually land it from there so you just saw the needle was on the left and i haven't changed my heading and now the needle's suddenly going far to the right and that's because the vor is now passing off our right side so you can see it right there it's going to be slightly to the right of us and now keep your eye on the flag here the needle is all the way to the right and this flag is about to change to say from okay there's the front flag so now like we talked about before because we have a from flag we are now flying outbound from the gaviota vor on the radial that's at the top here the one two six radial because that's the one that goes south east from the vor we were on the 306 inbound now that we've crossed over we're on the one two six outbound from the vor so there's the airport there and just for this exercise i'm just gonna go ahead and change it even though we can visually see the airport right now let's go ahead and change our cdi using the obs knob we'll change the one zero one radial so we're still from the gaviota vor it's still behind us but now instead of find the on the one two six radial we're going to fly on the one zero one radial that is how we figured we would get directly to the santa barbara airport is by flying on that radial so again i'm turning to intercept that radial because we're close to the vor the needle is going to move more quickly and now i'm about to turn back to the right to get on that one zero two heading so the needle's in the middle i turn back out to the one zero two heading so we track that radial outbound and now when i level out of course the airport is directly in front of us just like we planned so you know if we were going much further this airport or the next vor we were headed to we would once again just hold this course we would keep the needle in the middle fly this outbound radial one zero one one zero two to our next destination which would be another vor or an airport in this case this was our last vor that we needed to get to the santa barbara airport we have it in sight so we don't really need to use the vor anymore and we just need to contact the tower get our clearance for landing and do the landing seven so i hope this video gave you a good intro into how to fly using vors and how they work and as usual if you have any comments recommendations suggestions any of that please leave them in the comments below and i'll take a look so thanks so much and i hope you found this useful see you next time

Channel: Kip on the Ground

Views: 7,111

Rating: 4.9885058 out of 5

Keywords: tutorial, fs 2020, mfs 2020, msfs 2020, mfs, fs, msfs, sim

Id: Zf2-4iDnWKk

Length: 19min 45sec (1185 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 14 2020