How to Fly the Pattern Without Making an #@$ of Yourself

this is an open field add a runway some hangers a fuel farm a windsock some airplanes and now it's an airport add a control tower and it completely ruins this video so no control tower like everything else in life airports have rules remember no tower so you're on your own for the rules you'll find them in this book we'll get to that in a minute but first the number one rule of flying other than don't get killed doing it is don't be an hold that thought we'll need it later here we switch directly to the birds eye view because the animation department can't do those 3d pan ups because well you will have noticed this ain't disney and anyway the stupid talk balloons work a lot better in the top-down view back to the rule book and this is really simple in an airport traffic pattern all turns must be to the left unless they're to the right in which case this segmented circle thing tells you this just after you enter the left downwind into oncoming traffic and surprise not all airports have segmented circles and many that do haven't been painted since 1963. so look in this book the chart supplement and it will tell you whether the runway is right or left traffic but nobody uses paper charts anymore well okay maybe paul verge look for this runway information in your favorite app and do that oh no closer than a mile from the airport oh and also the regulation says powered parachutes must avoid the flow of fixed wing traffic which they normally do by crashing into the power line runway should some unsuspecting but well-meaning it i mean pilot enter your right traffic pattern with a left turn well here's your first chance not to be an and the producer tells me i can use aso only once and i'm already too over the limit this is not the moral equivalent of leaving your shopping cart in the parking spot a general reminder is all that's needed and while sarcasm is tempting don't overplay your hand there are rules for entering patterns sort of find them in this other book that you've never read except in that rush 10 minutes before your flight review this is a diagram of how the faa imagines traffic patterns work and this is how they really work let's look closer although it seems hopelessly naive and so 40 years ago you can actually enter a pattern on the 45 to the downwind leg like this it's all loyally proper and no one will sue you although they may find you distressingly obsessed with you know not dying in a smoking crater after a midair collision if that's too boring for you it's okay to enter here on an upwind then turn downwind or even fly the ever reviled testosterone soaks circling overhead approach with a break if you do that while wearing a flight jacket with patches you're not a true at i mean dick you're just channeling walter mitty and that's okay and here's a shocker you could fly over the middle of the airport and turn into the downwind or enter here on the crosswind leg what about a left base entry yes that too but not on a day when the pattern is full of 12-hour students shooting tick-tock clips and 79-year-old guys with bad hearing in limbago and not of course if the runway has right traffic which you would know because well you forgot to check and this this is a radio a really old radio but it still works and allows you to tell everyone what you're doing politely precisely and concisely keep the call short and on point this this not this and now what you've all been waiting for the straight in approach compared to festering radio arguments over straight ends world war ii was a mild family squabble somehow barging straight into the pattern has become less desirable than say genocide or sticking up a 7-eleven some pilots think a straight-in is against the laws of nature or at least like removing the label from a mattress under penalty of law but the guidance book you know the one we never read says straight ins are okay and it uses this language pilots are encouraged to use the standard traffic pattern however those pilots who choose to execute a straight-in approach should not disrupt the flow of arriving and departing aircraft because government regulations prevent the use of plain language what it really means is this those pilots who choose to execute a straight-in approach should not be dicks about it to clarify this is not the day to fly a straight-in approach it's better to go all predictable like and start the show over here however if only a straight end will fill your heart with the warm glow of aviation at its exciting best well you can try to work it out on the unicom frequency if you don't mind derisive laughter nonetheless if you're in the downwind and another airplane comes into view flying a straight in and you're absolutely positively sure you occupy the high moral ground and i'll pause the animation to save making like 400 more keyframes take a deep breath take another one and remember this it's not like those airplanes are being flown by joseph stalin or charles manson or even marilyn manson but your neighbor well maybe not that neighbor this neighbor muster all the courtesy and politeness you can while you try to ward off an aneurysm and say something like this yellow cub will extend for the straight end traffic adding the teenagers oh my god psy seems tempting but it might be lost on the 79 year old straight in pilot who can't hear you anyhow so better not to righteousness aside when you're on base leg look right or left for the nordo straight in that could be there keep in mind that you could be the one with the dead radio and we pause again to explain that nordo is shorthand for no radio as in don't have one or it's toast like this one is about to be since it was made when the earth was cooling also whenever you see traffic pointed out to you by someone else say this charlie hoe there's a good chap especially after you made a right turn into a left traffic pattern a word on altitude try to enter the pattern at the published altitude which is an always 1000 feet agl it makes it easier for other airplanes to see you and you won't descend into an airplane you can't see also other pious will have less reason to think you are the spawn of satan even if you are flying an air coop and last if all of this is too much for you to process you've had a bad day and the traffic pattern just seems so mean and utterly barren of meaningful social interchange just strike out and land on some road somewhere all the cool kids are doing it and what could go wrong anyway [Music] [Music] do [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] but i can still handle you with only one [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] you

Channel: AVweb

Views: 135,993

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Id: PMK6GRrMCdI

Length: 11min 51sec (711 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 01 2021