(Corky Scott) wrote in message ...

[snip]


During the debrief, the examiner told me I should not intercept a
radial at 90 degrees. 45 degrees was more than enough, but since I
managed to hit it and roll out directly on course without having to
correct at all, he shrugged and said he couldn't really fault me for
it. Haven't used a VOR since, of course. ;-)

Corky Scott

corky --

fwiw, i disagree pretty strongly with the examiner. if you don't
know how far you are from a vor, a 45 deg "intercept" can take you
past the vor before you reach the radial. a 90 is the only "sure bet"
(and in the rare case of horrendous winds, it's not even sure.) thought
experiment: you're 4 nm wnw of the vor heading 180, and are told
to intercept the 360 radial. a 45 deg won't cut it in this case.
in fact, even if you were nw instead of wnw, a 45 would put you
_at the vor_ at the instant of intercept.

that being said, if you have the situational awareness (big picture)
to know your position relative to the vor (dme helps :-)) and you
know a 45 will work, (i.e., get you to the radial before crossing
the vor), then the 45 is probably preferrable.

responding to the original thread: i've only had one private pilot
applicant bust the checkride, and he busted 'cuz he forgot how to
intercept a radial (that was about 10 or 12 years ago). so now, i
make _damn sure_ the student can do that consistently. (he did
o.k. the last time i flew with him, but choked on the exam.)

g_a