More pattern police nonsense.

gismo

gismo

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Coming into Venice FL (KVNC) today I heard a few planes using runway 22 (which is the "preferred no wind runway") and was planning on a left base entry for that runway but the ASOS indicated the winds had switched from something like 250@7 to more like 290-300 at 9-10. By the time I got closer the traffic had died down so I announced my intention to land on 31 and maneuvered to make a straight in to that runway. When I was on a mile final a Cessna announced a departure from 22 (which intersects 31 midfield). I announced my short final again and the Cessna said they'd wait until I crossed 22 before taking off so all was working well. Turning off 31 onto a taxiway I announced clear of 31 and a Mooney that apparently had been waiting behind the Cessna for takeoff piped up with "The active runway is 24" prompting me to quip back "There's no such thing as an active runway at an uncontrolled field." Meanwhile a King Air announced he was landing on 31 which prompted another announcement about the "active" runway from the Mooney followed by "Mooney xxx taking the active runway". I bit my tongue to avoid transmitting "Where are you taking it" and "Please return it when you're finished with it".
 
gismo said:
Coming into Venice FL (KVNC) today I heard a few planes using runway 22 (which is the "preferred no wind runway") and was planning on a left base entry for that runway but the ASOS indicated the winds had switched from something like 250@7 to more like 290-300 at 9-10. By the time I got closer the traffic had died down so I announced my intention to land on 31 and maneuvered to make a straight in to that runway. When I was on a mile final a Cessna announced a departure from 22 (which intersects 31 midfield). I announced my short final again and the Cessna said they'd wait until I crossed 22 before taking off so all was working well. Turning off 31 onto a taxiway I announced clear of 31 and a Mooney that apparently had been waiting behind the Cessna for takeoff piped up with "The active runway is 24" prompting me to quip back "There's no such thing as an active runway at an uncontrolled field." Meanwhile a King Air announced he was landing on 31 which prompted another announcement about the "active" runway from the Mooney followed by "Mooney xxx taking the active runway". I bit my tongue to avoid transmitting "Where are you taking it" and "Please return it when you're finished with it".
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Pilots are never wrong. We just disagree on what is right. Clearly you were right. The mooney guy was right. The King Air guy was right, etc.

Seriously, I've been in your position before. The best option is just to shake your head and move on. You can't fix the self-righteous.
 
Lance: You've certainly had issues at that place. That one where you were taking off on one runway and someone else on another is something I cringe about.

Best,

Dave
 
I won't land at Venice, for that reason. At that location, the A___ole population is enormous. Add to that the wanna-beRV pseudo military guys....I'm outta dere.
 
Pilawt said:
There's a difference between "uncontrolled" and "chaotic" ...
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Personally I prefer the phrase "pilot controlled airport" but I don't think the FAA agrees with me.
 
Technically, Isn't the "active" runway, whatever runway is currently occupied by an aircraft?

So, "taking the active" isnt correct, he is making it active by using it for take off.


Pilot Controller Glossary:
Runway in use/active runway "Any runway or runways currently being used for takeoff or landing. When multiple runways are used, they are all considered active runways. in the metering sense, a selectable adapted item which specifies the landing runway configuration or direction of traffic flow. ..."

I've been in situations like that before too. Its kind of funny to hear the arguing.... (as long as no one swaps paint...).

I think all airports are "controlled", just some are "nontowered"

I could be wrong.
 
Just as useless as those "clear of the active" calls. Or "don't do a straight-in here!!!!!". Or....declaring an emergency and then hearing some jet say "hey approach can i land before him"? Just got to smile and move on.

There are lots of good guys out there, though.
 
The only ways a runway can be THE active runway at a nontowered airport is if there's only one runway (and I've yet to see an airport with less than two) or there's only one plane around. Other than that, any and all runways may be active.

That said, after 40+ years of listening to this, I've given up trying to fix it, and if there's a question, I just ask the pilot who used the term so unspecifically.
 
sba55 said:
Just as useless as those "clear of the active" calls. Or "don't do a straight-in here!!!!!". Or....declaring an emergency and then hearing some jet say "hey approach can i land before him"? Just got to smile and move on.

There are lots of good guys out there, though.
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That "don't do a straight-in here" happened to me a while back. Let's see, approaching a non-towered field from the south, wind from the north and I'm lined up with rwy 1. And I wouldn't do a straight in approach why? Pattern police says "not allowed here". I asked where I would find that in the A/FD for that airport. Didn't hear another word and landed straight in without incident. Some people...
 
Ghery said:
That "don't do a straight-in here" happened to me a while back. Let's see, approaching a non-towered field from the south, wind from the north and I'm lined up with rwy 1. And I wouldn't do a straight in approach why? Pattern police says "not allowed here". I asked where I would find that in the A/FD for that airport. Didn't hear another word and landed straight in without incident. Some people...
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I agree, and I have an R-rated phrase to accompany that thought.

Pattern police can. . . um . . . enjoy my sno-cone?
 
Recently I was tempted to play pattern police when coming back to home base from a fuel run. The AWOS was announcing calm wind, and someone was in the pattern announcing "downwind for the active", "turning left base for the active", "short final for the active". Finally I'd had enough and asked her "and which runway is 'the active'", hoping she would get the point. She did answer "runway 27 is active", but after I landed continued to announce her intentions to taxi back to "the active".

Finally another pilot who had been doing his runup at the other end of the runway had had enough and piped up with "you're taxiing to 27, runway 27, not 'the active'... 27."

Absolutely no effect. She departed again on "the active". The pilot who had spoken up then announced his departure very firmly on 27, and "the active" pilot made another round of the pattern and then departed the area.

It's St. Anthony of Padua and the fishes. Even when there's good reason to correct someone on the radio, 9 times out of 10 it doesn't do a lick of good anyway.
 
One thing I try to NEVER, EVER do is argue on the advisory frequency. It's better to just not answer when people incorrectly criticize your flying.
 
Palmpilot said:
One thing I try to NEVER, EVER do is argue on the advisory frequency. It's better to just not answer when people incorrectly criticize your flying.
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Agreed. If someone has a beef with another pilot's pattern choices, or their terminology, or whatever, they really should weigh the actual effect of those things against the real hazards created by hogging the frequency to dispense one's wisdom when the airport is busy. And as pointed out above, 9 times out of 10 any criticism is unheeded, anyway.

And here's my two cents' worth on some of the other controversial topics, FWIW:

I've noticed that this culture of rigid thinking and authoritarian attitude ("we don't do that here") goes hand-in-hand with believing the radio is a magic box that will protect us from midairs or incursions. In the end, no matter how conformist your actions or announcements are, the only rule that makes sense, even if everybody's on the CTAF, even at a tower-controlled airport, is to look- and think- before you do anything, and do so while there's time to safely alter whatever it is you want to do. The radio is the backup to me, not the primary. And the ways of doing things that we know from our training or our familiar home 'drome are not carved in stone. You may still reject someone else's choice, but if that aircraft is out there, you have to deal with it, and the radio won't help you with that.

The reason for this opinion? The closest I've ever come to swapping paint with other aircraft in the pattern, I was either under tower control or listening to people announcing "standard" procedures that turned out to be anything but "standard."

Then there's the fact that many of these same pilots are so locked in to making the same announcements every time, they will often give information that is, at that moment, incorrect... and reports that are unusual or incorrect to them will simply not register, or will agitate them to the point where they'll hog the frequency with criticism or even express their opinion with their aircraft(!)

That attitude is more dangerous than traffic volume or a lack of standardization, IMHO.
 
azure said:
Recently I was tempted to play pattern police when coming back to home base from a fuel run. The AWOS was announcing calm wind, and someone was in the pattern announcing "downwind for the active", "turning left base for the active", "short final for the active". Finally I'd had enough and asked her "and which runway is 'the active'", hoping she would get the point. She did answer "runway 27 is active", but after I landed continued to announce her intentions to taxi back to "the active".

Finally another pilot who had been doing his runup at the other end of the runway had had enough and piped up with "you're taxiing to 27, runway 27, not 'the active'... 27."

Absolutely no effect. She departed again on "the active". The pilot who had spoken up then announced his departure very firmly on 27, and "the active" pilot made another round of the pattern and then departed the area.

It's St. Anthony of Padua and the fishes. Even when there's good reason to correct someone on the radio, 9 times out of 10 it doesn't do a lick of good anyway.
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Ah yes, one of those "check me out, I use pilot lingo" pilots... :rolleyes2: So deeply ingrained that the meaning of "active" itself has been obscured.

I never understood the use of the word "active", even by controllers, except in the context of "what's the active?", which one should know already, anyway.

It takes what- half a second? to say the runway number, and doing so helps everybody, including that nervous pilot who's itching to announce an ATITAPA every 5 seconds, starting from 30 miles out. :D
 
David said:
Not to churn things up, but why not fly a standard pattern or whatever pattern the airport operator has indicated?
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Because sometimes it's more convenient or even safer to use something other than the AIM-recommended 45-downwind entry.
 
Ron Levy said:
Because sometimes it's more convenient or even safer to use something other than the AIM-recommended 45-downwind entry.
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Safety, no disagreement there but what about normal circumstances. Convenience trumps the recommended procedure?
 
David said:
Safety, no disagreement there but what about normal circumstances. Convenience trumps the recommended procedure?
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As long as it doesn't compromise safety? Sure -- why not? If there isn't another plane in the pattern, why not fly a straight-in if you're arriving from that direction? If the only other traffic is turning base, and you're arriving from the nonpattern side, why not join the crosswind rather than overfly, turn around, and join on the 45?
 
Ron Levy said:
As long as it doesn't compromise safety? Sure -- why not? If there isn't another plane in the pattern, why not fly a straight-in if you're arriving from that direction? If the only other traffic is turning base, and you're arriving from the nonpattern side, why not join the crosswind rather than overfly, turn around, and join on the 45?
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Let's say it's a field with no AWOS/ASOS. Let's also say you have a GPS that can tell you what the winds are doing as you approach. If you fly a straight-in and have a landing accident, is FAA likely to ding you for not overflying and checking the wind sock/tee/tetrahedron and thereby not gathering all information available related to your flight?
 
Trapper John said:
Let's say it's a field with no AWOS/ASOS. Let's also say you have a GPS that can tell you what the winds are doing as you approach. If you fly a straight-in and have a landing accident, is FAA likely to ding you for not overflying and checking the wind sock/tee/tetrahedron and thereby not gathering all information available related to your flight?
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If I prang the plane on landing, the FAA is going to give me a 709 ride no matter how I entered the pattern. As for 91.103, whose language you used, that covers "Preflight action" only, and so would not be applicable to this situation unless I didn't get wind data as part of my preflight planning.
 
You don't need no steenkin GPS. All you need is a sweep second hand. You TIME both ways over the runway.

You look for smoke rising. You check for side slippage. You figure it out. I wonder how we did things back in the day.....not. :dunno:
 
bbchien said:
You don't need no steenkin GPS. All you need is a sweep second hand. You TIME both ways over the runway.

You look for smoke rising. You check for side slippage. You figure it out. I wonder how we did things back in the day.....not. :dunno:
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I didn't mean to suggest that a GPS is necessary to get an indication of what the winds are doing. It was just a part of the hypothetical situation.
 
Ron Levy said:
Because sometimes it's more convenient or even safer to use something other than the AIM-recommended 45-downwind entry.
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Amen.
Let it be clear that by "nonstandard" I don't mean "not a rectangular pattern", or that I mean "left or right despite any published direction". I also don't mean "coming in at cruise speed to do a midfield military break in the midst of traffic flying the rectangle", or "dropping onto the base leg from above, after calling '3 miles out' less than 30 seconds earlier". :rolleyes2:

I mean stuff like not slavishly going to some unpublished and indeterminate key position for a "45" entry, regardless of traffic, etc. It's silly, and IMHO, I'd rather be coming in crosswind, over the runway threshold,with downwind or entering-downwind traffic between my 9 and 3 o'clock positions than enter DW on a 45 and risk converging with traffic that's over my shoulder. Personally, I've had less problems locating other traffic and being located by them doing that than turning and descending or whatever on the far side of the downwind leg, trying to pick up a 45-degree line to downwind. And everybody seems to pick a different spot to enter from that 45-degree line... it can be hairy sometimes.

As for straight-ins: not a problem when traffic allows, but announce often and accurately(!), and don't assume everyone else must yield to you because you are coming straight in. If you're sweating every minute or every dollar you spend on fuel, don't try to make it my problem.

And I don't appreciate being told (on a busy CTAF) that I shouldn't use some landmark shown on a chart for my initial position report, because "everybody uses such-and-such". If you have a recommendation for pilots visiting your home field, approach that pilot on the ground and offer it as a suggestion (and explain why it's better); don't act like you own the place and have a specific point published in the A/FD. :rolleyes2:
 
rottydaddy said:
As for straight-ins: not a problem when traffic allows, but announce often and accurately(!), and don't assume everyone else must yield to you because you are coming straight in.
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I think you can assume everyone is required by 91.113(g) to yield to you; what you cannot assume is that everyone will yield to you. :wink2:
 
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Ron Levy said:
As long as it doesn't compromise safety? Sure -- why not? If there isn't another plane in the pattern, why not fly a straight-in if you're arriving from that direction? If the only other traffic is turning base, and you're arriving from the nonpattern side, why not join the crosswind rather than overfly, turn around, and join on the 45?
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I see your point but I guess that's still just tossing out the recommended procedure for no good reason other than saving a minute or two. Don't get me wrong, I'll occasionally break that rule too but not too often. I think maybe I shouldn't break it at all. I've spent so much time at uncontrolled fields with nordo traffic and as nordo traffic that flying a standard pattern just makes the most sense. There's a thread on beechtalk that offers a good example. A bonanza was able to see and avoid a 172 that cut in front of him on downwind. The 172 was entering on the 45. The 172 pilot apparently wasn't using his radio - not listening or talking. The old mark 2 eyeballs and fast action by the bonanza pilot saved the day (would we expect anything less from a bonanza pilot?). Had the 172 jumped in from above, midfield crosswind, on final below the bonanza or somewhere else, the bonanza pilot might not have seen him.
 
The problem with the AIM recommended pattern entries is that it often requires a lot of maneuvering around the airport area to accomplish it and that maneuvering makes it much harder to keep an eye on the sky.

I flew to a pancake breakfast this morning and entered on the left base for the runway. I was able to watch the pattern the entire time as I approached it. Had I done a bunch of maneuvering to try and enter on a 45 for a downwind I'd have been eyes off the pattern for a much larger percentage of the time.

On the ramp after breakfast:
198200_1639347944991_1275540023_31409904_5340546_n.jpg
 
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You just made my point for me. You were able to see everyone in the pattern because you knew where to look. I know you're allowed and I also know that it rarely results in a crash but the pattern system was developed to help all of us identify other planes in the pattern and it works - as you found out today.

Extra maneuvering in an airplane is a problem? :confused: I'll pretend that a fellow aviator didn't write that:wink2: Nice picture!


jesse said:
The problem with the AIM recommended pattern entries is that it often requires a lot of maneuvering around the airport area to accomplish it and that maneuvering makes it much harder to keep an eye on the sky.

I flew to a pancake breakfast this morning and entered on the left base for the runway. I was able to watch the pattern the entire time as I approached it. Had I done a bunch of maneuvering to try and enter on a 45 for a downwind I'd have been eyes off the pattern for a much larger percentage of the time.
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David said:
Extra maneuvering in an airplane is a problem? :confused: I'll pretend that a fellow aviator didn't write that:wink2: Nice picture!
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Extra maneuvering is a problem when it limits my ability to keep an eye on the traffic pattern.
 
Ron Levy said:
As long as it doesn't compromise safety? Sure -- why not? If there isn't another plane in the pattern, why not fly a straight-in if you're arriving from that direction? If the only other traffic is turning base, and you're arriving from the nonpattern side, why not join the crosswind rather than overfly, turn around, and join on the 45?
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Amen... More pilots need to think like that..:wink2::D
 
Visibility is a real problem in the Seneca, with two large nacelles at shoulder level limiting downward view. Left base works really really well for me- but as I'm faster than a lot of traffic doesn't leave a lot of options.

So I end up doing the less easy overhead 360 with the eyes out, listening, and trying to nail everyone down- because descent to traffic below which I can't see.....well that isn't relaxed.
 
David said:
Had the 172 jumped in from above, midfield crosswind, on final below the bonanza or somewhere else, the bonanza pilot might not have seen him.
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Those sorts of entries aren't what I'd call "safe," so I suggest not using them. But a straight-in on an appropriate glide path, or an upwind entry, or joining on crosswind at TPA (there being no such part of a pattern as a "midfield crosswind"), or joining straight into the downwind ("extended downwind") at TPA shouldn't be a problem. The key for me is being at TPA 2-3 miles outside the pattern, and then joining the pattern from the outside, and not crossing through the middle of the "box."
 
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A pattern discussion without 'dtuuri' piping in is boring :wink2: .
 
David said:
You just made my point for me. You were able to see everyone in the pattern because you knew where to look. I know you're allowed and I also know that it rarely results in a crash but the pattern system was developed to help all of us identify other planes in the pattern and it works - as you found out today.
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The "pattern system" doesn't really define where all the other planes will be given than different airplanes are gonna fly their crosswind, downwind, and base legs in different places. Putting all the pattern entries at midfield downwind sounds convenient WRT spotting traffic but at a busy airport it would simply move the chaos to the area where planes arriving from different directions converge (while some are descending no less). IME it's far more important that pilot's entering the airspace near an untowered field do three things:

1) Be at the TPA well before reaching the area.
2) Spend most of your time looking outside
3) Use the radio if you have one (mostly by listening and calling your turns) but don't expect everyone else to do so.
 
Why would I turn my back to all the traffic? I think the FAA has their head up their ass with the 45º to downwind for just about every situation except when you are already on the 45º to downwind before you are near the airport environment. Generally the less time in the pattern, the less you are going to have to worry about others, or causing problems for others. The last time I went out of my way to fly the 45 was on my CFI ride.
 
EdFred said:
The last time I went out of my way to fly the 45 was on my CFI ride.
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I joined on the crosswind at TPA on my CFI ride. I said what I was going to do before I did it and why I was doing it that way. Actually, I did that for everything on the ride which seemed to work in my favor. It demonstrated the teaching portion and let me see if I was doing something the inspector didn't like (watching his face as I said things).

I've only flew over an airport to turn around for a 45 on a downwind once, as a student pilot, since my CFI told me to. I thought it was ridiculous and never did it again. A good way to get disoriented in an unfamiliar area and a good way to hit airplanes.
 
Lots of experienced pilots, nothing close to a consensus on pattern procedures. No wonder there are a lot of ruffled feathers on the ramp. One reason I try to use airports with a control tower.
 
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