The AVweb video for this week is great...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6q2VKsv ... r_embedded

Love it!

No that is good

I can really identify with this guy on two points.

The first is that learning to fly an approach a number of ways gets you more in tune with your plane. It helps prepare you for a new and strange situation. Not just the "stabilized approach".

The second is the monster patterns. Here in Corvallis, and a very active flight school teaches the huge pattern, and it is really frustrating to follow these guys in. I usually will use the crosswind runway instead, making sure I've called out my intentions. Besides, one can always use cross wind practice, right?

tom

ps. I do think the epaulets will be my next wardrobe purchase.

Now there is a video I really enjoyed. Have just forwarded it to one of my students (age 60) recently rated... and flying huge patterns learned somewhere else. We went to a low use airport Sunday to do cross winds. She was really wide each time... until I killed the power and showed her where her pretty Cessna would park. Next pattern was done at 500 agl, nice and tight. Pulled power on downwind.... made it all the way to the numbers without a heart rate spike. She even bought lunch afterward... so it turned out to be a learning experience and lunch. By the way, I park next to ERAU western campus flight line. The pimples are visible even from 150 yards away. I call them the WILCO boys. That is the standard reply they use daily on the radio. Maybe they saw a war movie once upon a time.

Now, somebody needs to make one about announcing your position twenty times on each touch and go... ha ha Maybe with tighter patterns, they'd have less time to be so chatty...

Who taught this generation of supersized pattern instructors to do this? There are none in this area that I know of but once again out here in the sticks we are the last to get the latest technique, fad or fashion. I'm still waiting to look "bad" in my baggy sagging pants with my undies sticking out.

Great video.
I have some ex fighter pilot buds,who like to come in at pattern alt.,down the runway and bank hard for the down wind.
When they roll out of the turn on downwind,they drop the gear and fly a nice tight pattern to the runway.
The thought is that the whole runway and pattern is visible,and they say a safer entry to the airport area.
The passenger looking out the window not knowing it is comming is in for a big surprise
They only do it with fellow pilots tho.

Juan80 wrote:Great video.
I have some ex fighter pilot buds,who like to come in at pattern alt.,down the runway and bank hard for the down wind.
When they roll out of the turn on downwind,they drop the gear and fly a nice tight pattern to the runway.
The thought is that the whole runway and pattern is visible,and they say a safer entry to the airport area.
The passenger looking out the window not knowing it is comming is in for a big surprise
They only do it with fellow pilots tho.

Its called an overhead approach. We do it frequently in the warbirds and most every time we are in formation...assuming the pattern traffic is such that we can do it without causing any issues.

There is a write up about it in the AOPA magazine this month if I recall.

Here is a video of the overhead approach as taken from the front seat of the Stearman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7Fjezil4LE

Awesome video... I've really starting noticing this since I became proficient in my airplane. It's so manueverable and slows down so well I can fly a really tight pattern. If I get stuck behind wide pattern guy I either turn base over the numbers and slip it in ahead of them or I have to run wide open at 95 mph all the way around the pattern behind them so it doesn't not take me 20 minutes to land. I followed a guy the other day who flew at least a 5 mile final it was totally ridiculous and huge waste of time and gas. Hope this video get's spread around to all the aviation communities.

lowflybye wrote:
There is a write up about it in the AOPA magazine this month if I recall.

Correction...the article is about formation and is in the EAA Sport Aviation magazine this month

I really enjoy Paul Bertorelli's videos. He does a good job at Avweb and he manages to be pretty entertaining, and I certainly I'm in favor of anything that make pilots examine the practicality of their own techniques. I'm definitely guilty of flying too large a pattern at times and relying on power too heavily to adjust glideslope.

AvidFlyer wrote:...If I get stuck behind wide pattern guy I either turn base over the numbers and slip it in ahead of them or ......

I've done this accidently and got chewed out by the guy flying the bomber-pattern for cutting him off. Even though I had landed, cleared the runway, and taxi'd halfway to my hangar by the time he came over the fence.

Eric

hotrod150 wrote:

AvidFlyer wrote:...If I get stuck behind wide pattern guy I either turn base over the numbers and slip it in ahead of them or ......

I've done this accidently and got chewed out by the guy flying the bomber-pattern for cutting him off. Even though I had landed, cleared the runway, and taxi'd halfway to my hangar by the time he came over the fence.

Eric

It is annoying the follow the huge pattern guy, but probably simply asking for "permission" from the wide pattern guy to do this would produce an "okay" and keep everyone aware. If you cut inside without asking, you've done two things: 1) Departed from the convention that keeps everyone expecting you to be where you should be (following), and 2) Encroached on the #1 to land's right of way. Are we not gentlemen?

When learning to fly (sill learning I suppose) I was doing it in Ashland, OR. My instructor was a 20 K hr guy that has flown everthing. Not a short or a long pattern in my opinion.

After I soloed we took a trip to Provo, UT. I took my log book with me and got checked out in a 152 there and did a little flying. Their patterns were huge but that was because there were a lot of guys doing touch and go's and most of us were students. It was nice to have lots of separation. I am glad there were not nine planes doing touch and go's in a tight pattern that day.

Now when at an airport and am landing behind a guy that streaches out his base leg way too far, I turn base a micro second after he turns final and just fly real slow.

At my place, I have a pretty short pattern.

Tim

What an excellent video. It would be so ridiculous to be in the pattern and not make the runway if it quit.
I have had several times when the engine really did quit in the pattern in different planes for different reasons. Always made the runway so far.
Steve

There are a couple RV pilots at Scappoose that I hate being behind in the pattern. You are pretty much set up for a three mile final following their lead. Makes me nervous when flying a pacer with the glide ratio of a rock.


How about for next weeks topic, the "Any traffic in the pattern please advise" guy.

fern_hopper wrote:There are a couple RV pilots at Scappoose that I hate being behind in the pattern. You are pretty much set up for a three mile final following their lead. Makes me nervous when flying a pacer with the glide ratio of a rock.

I've been behind those exact guys at Scappoose! I was kind of aware of the patterns they were making, so on downwind I slowed it down to about 80 and loafed along until I saw him coming back the opposite direction on final.

Adding to the bomber pattern here in the Peoples Republic of Oregon is the lovely little technique of "stop and go" on the runway like there is no one else in the pattern. This is a regular occurrence at Scappoose to the point of making other traffic have to go around. Very thoughtful.

Kenny Chapman wrote:This is a regular occurrence at Scappoose to the point of making other traffic have to go around. Very thoughtful.

I got caught up in that too one day at Scappoose. Somebody in a Pacer landed and stopped on the runway. I was on base but just couldn't stretch things out enough and had to go around. Then as I overflew the runway I saw them taxi off. Real nice. Things could be worse I guess.. haha. More flight time logged.