On Apr 17, 9:56 pm, Mxsmanic wrote:
Kev writes:
You'll also need an A/FD (Airport/Facility Directory). Among many
other things, it tells you if there are unusable radials for each VOR.

I do have the A/FD (portions of it). But having to look up each and every
VOR? Why can't things be simple? And is every single pilot doing this, I
wonder?

A pilot who's going to use the VOR, should. They might also check
runway lengths, runway lighting, fuel availability, hours of
operation, local noise abatement procedures... sometimes asking other
pilots for local advice (you see that happen in this newsgroup).

Then there's all the NOTAMs. Including, related to VORs, equipment
outages. Again, as a student I once steered using a VOR without
ident'ing it first. If I had, I'd have noticed it was out of
service. Instead, I'm happily flying along, following a dead
instrument. My instructor noticed early on, grinning, but didn't say
anything for a while. Pretty embarassing, but you don't forget to
ident / verify after that ;-)

Just as if you were planning to drive across country, you'd usually
collect as much information as possible about roads, gas, tolls, even
perhaps local speed traps. Some do more research, some do very
little. The difference is that pilots are required by regulation to
collect as much information as possible. It's just about the vaguest
rule possible, and the most important in retrospect if something goes
wrong.

Kev