I donated an RNAV R50 to the College Park Aviation Museum. Previously I flew a lot using the previous model, and became quite adept in combining its capabilities with the VOR system and ADF stations to make incredibly long distance transitions from an airway to an ILS. My ADF was weak, but the LORAN knew exactly where it was, so I could turn inbound for the outer marker from more than twice the distance the ADF actually detected it.
I was not happy that the government terminated the LORAN system.
I created descent profiles matching the ILS, and the desired altitude matched the actual when I was on the glide slope, with the deviation indicator matching the CDI needle.
It calculated and displayed the desired descent profile to pattern altitude with precision, and adjusted it if your ground speed changed, so you arrived at the pattern right on altitude. The same could be done to the intercept of an ILS or VOR approach.
The distance to the nav way point was continuously displayed, just like DME.
Just like using GPS today, I filed direct to airports 300 or more miles away, and flew the great circle (shortest) route there. Controllers did not have any problem with that, and off airways, there was little traffic to watch for. The distance to an airport was not important, the database had every airport, VOR, NDB, and seaplane base in North America, all instantly accessible. It also had the MEA for every part of the USA, and displayed it while the navigation was active.
All the critical data for each airport was also in the database, altitude, runways, and frequencies.
On topic, that was the longest range ADF I ever used.
