Page 32 - PDF_Flip_Book

Rod Machado’s Private/Commercial Pilot Handbook
11-6

Fig. 8

pointed due north as it passed straight through town as shown in Figure 8, position A. While entering and leaving
town, your car pointed north (360 degrees), in the same direction as the freeway. If the portion of the freeway exiting
the town had a different name than the portion entering the town, would this affect the direction your car pointed
while passing through town? Of course not. Let’s call the portion of the freeway exiting the town to the south,
Freeway 180 and the portion exiting to the north, Freeway 360 (position B). Now we can say that we went to town on
Freeway 180 and exited on Freeway 360. Our direction never changed despite giving the freeway different names.
Navigation by VOR is basi-
cally the same, as shown by Fig. 9
position C. If we’re headed
northbound to the Town
VOR, we travel inbound on
the 180 degree radial and out-
bound on the 360 degree radi-
al. Either way, our airborne
freeway points in a direction
of 360 degrees, just like the
ground freeway. Referring to
a single freeway by radials
going to and from a VOR sta-
tion is sometimes awkward.
So let’s refer to our freeways
as courses. The course is sim-
ply the direction our air-
borne freeway points.
OK, now you’re ready
to see how we can select and
fly any one of 360 individual
courses (airborne freeways)
by using our VOR equip-
ment.