Quote:
Originally Posted by desertdog71 
You can simply turn when you cross the VOR and intercept the next radial you are flying or you can lead it by a mile or so, it kind of depends on your groundspeed. I would simply wait until you are over the VOR and then intercept the next radial. You won't be off course by much and you can get re-established pretty quickly.
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ATC expects you to fly the centerline of airways. Although airways were not mentioned specifically in the question, I'm gathering from the experience level it might be the case that the one asking the question doesn't know what an airway is, either.
What we do know from the question is there is a DME involved, and that allows us to lead turns to transition from centerline to centerline.
The first concept to understand is that DME gives a "Slant Range" to the gorund station. In other words, it gives the distance between the airplane and the NAVAID. Unless your airplane is sitting on top of the NAVAID, the DME will never be 0 (zero). If you are flying at 6,000 feet, the DME will read 1.0 when you fly directly over the station. When you are away from the station by several miles, the DME will approximate your distance from the point. As you get closer, it will be less accurate. Consider this effect as you attempt to calculate a "lead point" to turn to the next VOR course.
The second concept to understand is turn radius. The faster your groundspeed, the larger your turn radius. An airplane travelling at 180 knots will require a larger turn radius than one travelling 90 knots.
Then you consider how much of a turn you need to make. If you are going to turn 90 degrees, you should lead the turn by the full turn radius. In other words, if your turn radius is 0.5 miles, you should begin your turn ½ mile prior to the station, which might be 1.1 DME. If it's only a 45 degree or 30 degree turn, you use less of a lead point. We could toss out a few rules of thumb based on trigonometry here, but I think this might already be a bit much for lesson 1.
That's if you want to do it right. You'll encounter folks along the way that will be unable or unwilling to do the math to do it right, so they'll just wait for station passage, turn, and scramble to catch up. They can get away with it at 3,000 and 90 knots, but when they try that at FL410 and Groundspeed of 580 knots, they'll look stupid.
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HI KRISTIE!
