How am I supposed to know what I'm supposed to know?

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Monpilot

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Monpilot
I flew into San Antonio KSAT late last month VFR.

I was coming in from fredericksburgh so I was heading east into San Antonio.

Approach told me to vector to the San Antonio VOR then upon reaching it follow the 180 radial.

I had foreflight Vfr charts up on my yolk and for some reason I saw ISAT instead of SAT. Since ISAT is right on KSAT it didn't make sense to me to follow ISATs 180.

I replied to approach and asked him to confirm that he wanted me to head to
Eye Ess Ay Tee and he repeated to head to the San Antonio VOR. So I was confused.

After about 90 seconds of looking at the chart I finally found SAT and headed directly to it.

Aside from not recognizing SAT in a bouncing airplane what should I have done to get clarification so I could enter SAT into my garmin 430 much sooner?
 
"Approach...unfamiliar, can I get the identifier for San Antonio VOR"

"Cessna XYZ...Sierra Alpha Tango"

Identifying a VOR vs. an airport on a VFR sections is a whole 'nuther issue.
 
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1. Hint: VORs in the US will always be 3 letter identifiers.
2. Plug it in a nav radio and do it old school?
3. "Approach, can I get a vector towards SAT?" turn to heading, then set up the radio
 
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Monpilot said:
I flew into San Antonio KSAT late last month VFR.

I was coming in from fredericksburgh so I was heading east into San Antonio.

Approach told me to vector to the San Antonio VOR then upon reaching it follow the 180 radial.

I had foreflight Vfr charts up on my yolk and for some reason I saw ISAT instead of SAT. Since ISAT is right on KSAT it didn't make sense to me to follow ISATs 180.

I replied to approach and asked him to confirm that he wanted me to head to
Eye Ess Ay Tee and he repeated to head to the San Antonio VOR. So I was confused.

After about 90 seconds of looking at the chart I finally found SAT and headed directly to it.

Aside from not recognizing SAT in a bouncing airplane what should I have done to get clarification so I could enter SAT into my garmin 430 much sooner?
Click to expand...

"Approach, 23A, was that India Sierra Alpha Tango you wanted me to fly to?" We have standardized communications for a reason, you discovered it.

Also as Gucci mentioned, a VOR will be a three letter identifier.
 
In hindsight using "unfamiliar" or standard nomenclature or even asking for vectors would have done it.

Sing my first time into KSAT and being told to head to the VOR when less than 2 minutes from the field flustered me and my training went out the window.

On the plus side, that's more motivation to fly more and gain experience so I don't get flustered
 
Not yet discussed is that I-SAT is the identifier for the localizer at KSAT. When you get busy with your IFR training, you will learn more about that.

In addition to flying more, work on being more familiar with ForeFlight. There are at least two quick ways you could have found the SAT VOR on the maps page, and then have a line plotted from your present position to the VOR.
 
Would there be anything wrong with requesting vectors in this situation?
 
There is also the "nearest" option on the 430. That only take a couple of knob turns and a button push .... Get feature...:yesnod:
 
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