Vor: Fill & Download for Free

No, you don’t have to be an ethnic Russian to become a “vor v zakone” (lit. “thief in law”). “Vor v zakone” is a Soviet concept, and every Soviet criminal with a certain reputation and charisma had a chance of becoming vor. Today, many, if not most vors are not ethnic Russians, and many of those are not Russian citizens, due to the fall of the Soviet Union.For example, one of the most famous vors in recent years has been Zakhariy Kalashov, also known as Young Shakro. He is a Yazidi (an ethnicity close to Kurds) from Georgia. Kalashov was crowned as a vor in the early 1970s in Soviet Georgia, and he moved to Russia in the early 1990s. Now, after a lot of misadventures, he is in prison for extortion.It’s important to understand that vor is not a mafia boss. He can be, but he doesn’t have to. Vor is a highly respected career criminal who has proven his loyalty to the criminal way of life. A vor can be a solitary burglar or a master safecracker. So, his ethnicity is largely irrelevant. Conceptually, a proper vor is an (im)moral authority, a keeper of rules, and a judge of criminal conflicts. He is a master of criminal Zen.Pictured - Zakhariy Kalashov in court.

I don’t believe that many flights follow VOR airways anymore. Especially not airliners.You may see them going over VORs near large terminals because the VORs establish gateways to the airport. Traffic would get crazy if every jet went directly to the end of the runway. So, ATC gets them lined up out away from the runway over certain navigational fixes.Why did you ask this? What has lead you to believe that a significant number of airliners are flying over VORs enroute?

“Before GPS was developed, aircraft used VOR to navigate. How did the VOR system of navigation work?”Well, before we go any farther, let’s make sure we know that VOR is in NO way obsolete. It is still the most commonly used aircraft radio navigation system on the planet, and is an incredibly accurate and versatile system. GPS is nice, but it’s an extra (for GA aircraft at any rate). Any aircraft capable of long distance navigation will have a VOR onboard.VOR stands for “Very High Frequency Omni-directional Radio Range.” Don’t blink - ‘VOR’ is easier to type than ‘VHFODRR’, that’s all. :) (And just try saying “VuHuFodrrr”.)A VOR is basically a radio lighthouse. This is a lighthouse:See that beam of light? Make that a radio signal, and you’re starting to get the idea.Now - VOR stations aren’t quite as bitchin’ cool as lighthouses; they’re kind of ugly:But MAN do they do a good job.I said above that the VOR works as a lighthouse. Well - it does, but it also works like a metronome - one of these doohickeys:Right - it’s that thing you wanted to throw through the window in Grade Three piano class.It’s the combination of working like a metronome and working like a lighthouse that makes the whole thing er…work.This is what happens:The VOR station sends out a tight phased radio beam in a clockwise direction thirty times a second - that’s the lighthouse part. At the same time, it pulses an all-direction reference signal thirty times a second - the exact same speed as the rotating beam. That’s the ‘metronome’ part. The metronome signal pulses right as the lighthouse beam passes magnetic North.The rest of the magic happens in the airplane. The two signals are picked up by an airplane’s VOR antenna - it looks like this:Them two antennae that form a ‘V’ on either side of the rudder. There are two of them - and they’re in a V-shape - because their job is to pick up the difference in time of when the two signals arrive. REMEMBER - the global signal pulses precisely when the rotating signal passes due North, and the beam rotates at 30Hz. SO: if the two signals arrive at EXACTLY the same moment, the station is exactly SOUTH of you. If the rotating signal arrives 15 Hz AFTER the reference pulse, it is exactly NORTH. Get it?The device which translates the signal looks like this:This is your basic VOR gauge.(In truth, many VOR gauges include an ILS glideslope needle - but that’s making things unnecessarily complicated for this answer.)The gauge has two main indicators: the pointer needle and the TO/FROM flag.The instrument interprets the phase difference between the two signals, and moves the needle to reflect the direction the VOR station is in. If the station is in the 180-degree arc AHEAD of the position the needle is in (from 271 to 89 degrees) the flag will read TO. If it is in the 180-degree arc BEHIND the position of the needle the flag will read FROM.OK - until you’re familiar with the instrument, I get that that isn’t very clear. Why not have a pointer that just points at the right direction?Well - those DO exist, but trust me - this method is FAR more useful. But trust me in THIS too: I can’t really write a book on the subject right now - and in order to fully understand the VOR entire books HAVE been written…and the course is freakin’ tough.Let’s just say this: You’re flying the club’s trusty Cessna 172 and I’m beside you as your instructor:OK, POP QUIZ, student! Point out the VOR! I’ll wait……...No, really - point it out. Touch it on the screen.…...Smiles - it’s right here:There’s a rather more complicated one built into the HSI, but we don’t need to worry about that right now.OK - so now we know what we’re looking at, let’s say you tune the NAV radio to the frequency for our local VOR. The needle will move (usually right to the stops one way or another) and the TO/FROM flag will flick. Let’s say the needle - as in the picture of the first gauge - goes all the way to the left and the FROM flag has the arrow. That means the VOR station is somewhere to the left and behind of the direction the needle is pointing - NOT the direction the plane is flying!That’s important.You begin turning the knob under the VOR gauge, until the flag reads ‘TO’ and the needle is centered. The heading the instrument now reads is the direction the VOR is in relative to your aircraft. Let’s say after the requisite fiddling, the needle shows 45 degrees and the flag shows TO. 45 degrees is your BEARING to the VOR station. If you were to turn and fly at 45 degrees, you would eventually fly right over the damn thing.So let’s do that. We bank left, turn for a few seconds (Don’t let the nose drop…) and level out. We soon fly over the station - though we’ll never SEE the thing unless we’re actually looking and flying rather low.But what happens now?As we fly over, the needle will flicker for a moment, then stabilize BACK on 45 degrees - except this time the arrow will be on the FROM flag. We are now flying on a BACK BEARING of 45 degrees - or directly AWAY from the VOR.It is the combination of the needle, the TO/FROM flag and (often) another VOR - as well as OTHER nav aids often built into a VOR, such as DME (Distance Measuring Equipment) that gives a pilot precise, accurate information of his/her position over the ground. Getting used to it is NOT easy - while all pilots learn VOR you don’t really get in-depth into radio navigation until you do your Instrument rating - which trust me is a REAL bugger to get through. This is easy on the surface, but REALLY complicated in depth.But in general, that is how it works.Thanks for an excellent question. :)Cheers!