VOR Bore

[seldonman]

Don't know if you can still call me a beginner as I have been using flight Sim X for the past 3 months but I am still have trouble navigating with VOR. Just when I think I have it; by george something else pops up to trick me. I have bought a chart of the USA with the VOR and I have sucessfully flown from Seatle to Boise using VOR. That was last night and I thought I had it. I would tune to the VOR on NAV 1 and then turn my OSB until I was going directly to the VOR. Then I set my bug on that heading and click in the autopilot and viola, it worked like a charm. I even landing in one piece at Boise Intl.

Well, this morning I started to fly from Canberra, AU to Sydney and the NWA VOR does not cause any deflection of the CDI no matter where I set it or which way I turn. I have the Nav. 1 radio on, the DME on, reloaded a couple of times but no luck. The VOR is on the radio but it does not move the CDI no matter what plane I fly. Then I try to fly VOR to VOR from the city (S.F.) to Reno but again I have problems with the CDI centering and not moving, as it is OFF.

Any suggestion anyone? Is it time to ditch VOR for GPS???

[Tim_A]

NWA is not a VOR; it's a DME (Distance Measuring Equipment), so you will not get any deflection on the VOR head. When you tune and ident a DME, you will notice that the morse id has a higher pitch. VORs and DMEs have different symbols on the map, and although they are often co-located, it's not necessarily so. In this particular case, the DME is co-located with an NDB as part of the Nowra military airbase instrument approach system.

If you have a DME tuned and idented, and you have a DME readout display, you should see the distance to the station displayed, and possibly your speed (although this is only meaningful if you are heading directly to/from the DME). You did not say whether the DME display was reading correctly.

[seldonman]

Thanks Tim, I think that is the answer. Yes, the DME appeared to be functioning correctly.

[seldonman]

Can I take it that even though the FSX Flight Planner lists a stations as a VOR it may be a NDB or DME? But, wait, I just thought of something. Why does FSX call it a VOR and give it a valid VOR frequency when I thought the NDB and DME frequency was in megahertz and only displayed on the DME reciever?

Well, just thinking out loud here.

Jim

[scott967]

You're right. Due to the way the internal data of FSX is setup, a DME must be "part-of" a VOR or ILS. The VOR records have a flag for "DME only", which will create a stand-alone DME. Unfortunately, if you do a VOR to VOR flight plan in the flight planner, FSX will treat the DME the same as a VOR or VOR/DME. I imagine that probably isn't the best way to have designed it. If you want to make sure, you can zoom in on it in the map view and see that it is a square (DME) not a hexagon (VOR).

scott s.
.

[Tim_A]

I guess because "mostly" VORs and DMEs are co-located (and in such cases will share the same frequency), even though they are physically different equipments. NDBs transmit in the KHz range, and so will not share a the same frequency when co-located.

The symbol for an NDB is a series of concentric rings of green dots
The symbol for a VOR is a blue hexagon
The symbol for a DME is a blue square
The symbold for a co-located VOR/DME is a blue hexagon within a square

As Scott said, by treating an NDB as a "type of VOR", the MS flight planner can end up making unfortunate choices. But it's easy enough to change the flight plan for a more suitable navaid.

[seldonman]

Thanks all, I am now back on track and flying down to Pittsbugh from Portland, Maine. VOR HNK did not give me a CDI deflection when I tuned it in but thanks to all of your help I did not panick. I realized that it is a NDB and checked my NDB needle, which, of course, was/is responding. I have the heading bug set on 266 and sitting back enjoying the flight.

Thanks again all,

Seldonman AKA Jim