Definition
A magnetic bearing line projecting outward from a VOR station, used by a pilot flying away from the station. The pilot tracks the radial by centering the course needle with a FROM indication on the VOR receiver.
Plain English
A line of direction leading away from a navigation ground station. When you fly along it, you are moving away from the station, not toward it.
Context Anchor
Seen on instrument en route charts and in route descriptions when a course is defined by a radial leading away from a navigation station.
Derivation
Radial comes from the Latin radius, meaning the spoke of a wheel. A VOR station is the hub, and its 360 radials are the spokes extending outward. Outbound simply means moving away from that hub.
Why Pilots Care
Accurate use keeps the aircraft on the published airway and prevents deviation from protected airspace or assigned routing.
Analogy
Think of the navigation station as the center of a wheel. Each radial is like a spoke, and an outbound radial is the spoke direction moving away from the center.
Intuition Check
Do not read outbound radial as just any course away from something. In this context, it is specifically a compass-based line extending away from a radio navigation station.
Example Sentence 1
After station passage, the pilot tracked the 270 outbound radial to intercept the next airway segment.
Example Sentence 2
On the en route chart the airway was defined by the 090-degree outbound radial leaving the facility.