When I first started aviating with flight simulators, I would ascend into the virtual skies and simply fly around the airport from which I'd taken off. I'd practice my takeoff and landing skills and "fly around the flagpole", but never much more than that. Oh, sure, I'd venture out further and would land at other airports, but the airports where I landed were hardly ever my intended destination. That's because I didn't know how to navigate.

In this article, I will try to explain how to navigate throughout the virtual skies using VORs. I will use real sectional charts to show you how I created my flight plans. For me, using real sectional charts adds more realism to the flight sim experience. I realize that Microsoft Flight Sim incorporates a tool that creates a flight plan for you; however, in my opinion, that is far from fun. So sit back, relax, and enjoy this lesson. I have the airplane.

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