  In the relativistic plasma surrounding a pulsar, a subluminal ordinary-mode
electromagnetic wave will propagate along a magnetic field line. After some
distance, it can break free of the field line and escape the magnetosphere to
reach an observer. We describe a simple model of pulsar radio emission based on
this scenario and find that applying this model to the case of the Vela pulsar
reproduces qualitative characteristics of the observed Vela pulse profile.
