Pilot Technique

Help fight wide patternitis

Ever start to turn a left base at an uncontrolled airport and see another aircraft barreling in from the right on a base of its own? Unknown to you, the offending pilot had been lurking out there all along, flying a downwind leg that was two miles or more from the airport.

Or have you followed an aircraft on downwind that passes abeam the approach end, then travels a mile or more before turning base? All of the trailing aircraft are forced to follow along on this mini-cross-country flight.

Why do they do that? Better yet, why do we do that? Probably all of us have been guilty of flying wide patterns at one time or another. Consider the conscientious pilot who is transitioning to a faster and more complicated aircraft and needs more time to set up for the landing.

The need for more time turns out to be the common cause of the malady, by the way. While still in the traffic pattern, a flight instructor in Maryland recently sought a confession from a student who had just completed what looked like a cross-country flight. "I fly a wider pattern to give me more time," the student said. An official at Jackson Hole Aviation in Jackson, Wyoming, said the wide-pattern fliers there use the same excuse, although a sharply rising mountain range near the airport helps control them somewhat.

No one objects to pilots' being well prepared for the landing. The problem is that wider patterns not only can slow airport traffic, but they can lead to a midair collision. If you are among those suffering from wide patternitis, the cure is quick and simple: Get a copy of the FAA Flight Training Handbook, which suggests that the downwind leg be one-half mile to one mile from the landing runway. And how does one estimate a half-mile or a mile? Use the runway itself. If the runway is 5,000 feet long, for example, then the proper distance from the runway to the downwind leg is one-half to one full length of the runway. (Imagine it turned 90 degrees towards downwind.) After determining that point, see where the runway intersects your wing or wing strut, and you will never have to estimate it again.

Or get the AOPA Air Safety Foundation's booklet, Nontowered Airports. The booklet is good medicine for another pattern ill, this one a psychological malady — the belief that since the pattern is uncontrolled, anything goes. While it's true that pilots can do virtually anything they want at an uncontrolled airport, the rest of us have to get out of their way while they do it.

A pilot of a single-engine airplane was in the traffic pattern recently when a twin-engine aircraft charged onto the downwind leg from the opposite side of the airport, coming uncomfortably close. The twin's pilot later demanded to know why the single-engine aircraft was in his way. The single-engine pilot had taken the time to approach from the correct side and enter on a 45-degree angle to downwind. All of this was accomplished prior to the twin's dramatic arrival over the airport. Had the multiengine pilot followed the recommended standard entry, the near-miss would not have happened.

Uncontrolled doesn't mean out of control. The Aeronautical Information Manual (formerly the Airman's Information Manual) lays out very specific procedures for entering uncontrolled airport patterns. If you ignore them and cause an accident, the FAA may charge you with careless and reckless operation. So, in a way, the recommendations and suggestions in the AIM are covered under the Federal Aviation Regulations.

The AOPA Air Safety Foundation booklet offers these six tips:

1. Enter the pattern abeam the midpoint of the runway at pattern altitude.
2. Maintain pattern altitude until abeam the approach end of the runway, then turn base when the runway appears to be about 30 degrees aft of the wing.
3. Complete the turn to final about a quarter mile from the runway end.
4. When departing, continue straight ahead until beyond the departure end of the runway.
5. If remaining in the pattern, commence the turn to crosswind within 300 feet of pattern altitude.
6. If departing the traffic pattern, continue straight out or exit with a 45-degree turn beyond the departure end, after reaching pattern altitude.

The booklet is available from the AOPA Air Safety Foundation by calling 800/638-3101.