Some basics on the VOR.

The VOR is a pretty old nav system, but it works just fine if you understand the limits.

When in close to the station the radial is very narrow and thus more sensitive. At 60 miles from the station one degree is one mile wide so much less sensitive. If you fly a glass plane using VOR's observe how the computer leads the turn to intercept a radial. You will see that the computer will adjust the bank angle and lead time depending on radial movement. Do the same manually in the older planes (727, 707) and you will see better results. Most of the time in the 727 & 707 we would use either manual turn knob, or heading select to track the radial since the nav mode would produce too many zig zags.

Lou