kyleb
Final Approach
- Joined
- Jun 13, 2008
- Messages
- 7,556
- Location
- Marietta, GA
- Display Name
Display name:
Drake the Outlaw
Had a surprise in the pattern yesterday. I was behind a Learjet on departure from an uncontrolled field. An AA-1 that had been doing touch and goes had just departed and the Lear didn't roll until the AA-1 was almost out of sight.
I waited to enter the runway until the Lear was beyond the airport boundary - I wasn't in a hurry and wanted to give both the fumes and the wake turbulence time to blow away from the runway.
So I launched, climbed at something between VX and VY, turned crosswind a quarter mile past the end of the runway while climbing through pattern altitude. Then the AA-1 announced he was turning downwind.
Whaa? I wasn't even looking for him. By all rights, he should have been at midfield on downwind. So I look over to my right and sure enough, there's an AA-1 ~1/2 mile at my 3 o'clock and low.
Just a surprise since I'd mentally assigned him as "no factor"...
I waited to enter the runway until the Lear was beyond the airport boundary - I wasn't in a hurry and wanted to give both the fumes and the wake turbulence time to blow away from the runway.
So I launched, climbed at something between VX and VY, turned crosswind a quarter mile past the end of the runway while climbing through pattern altitude. Then the AA-1 announced he was turning downwind.
Whaa? I wasn't even looking for him. By all rights, he should have been at midfield on downwind. So I look over to my right and sure enough, there's an AA-1 ~1/2 mile at my 3 o'clock and low.
Just a surprise since I'd mentally assigned him as "no factor"...