system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Classic Doctor Who] was the TARDIS ever depicted as actually flying the way it sometimes is in modern Doctor Who?

I'm well-versed in the modern episodes, but have only seen a handful of the classics.  In the current series the TARDIS is always described as disappearing one place and appearing somewhere else instantaneously, but we randomly have images of it actually flying in spacing or flying through the time vortex.  Was it ever depicted this way in the past?  Does anyone have an in-universe explanation why sometimes it flies and sometimes it instantly changes places?
gpt
A few factors in play. 

Timeframe perspective - When the TARDIS appears to vanish or appear from nowhere it's actually the TARDIS translating to/from the Time vortex. The view you see is locked to your (the camera's) timeframe, which the TARDIS is entering or leaving.

Being 'part of events' - When we see the TARDIS 'in flight' like a more "conventional" spacecraft its not changing its position in time, only in space. As the Doctor remarks once "short hops are difficult" so if he doesn't need to move through time it's usually easier to just fly the TARDIS from point A to point B instead of accessing the Time vortex, assuming he landed in the open to begin with and not in a structure.