Sac Arrow
Touchdown! Greaser!
- Joined
- May 11, 2010
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- 20,381
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- Charlotte, NC
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Snorting his way across the USA
A thread over in Lessons Learned got me thing about this. We all know the proper way to enter a traffic pattern at a non towered airport is to a full left hand (or right, if so indicated) pattern on the 45, yada yada.
Case on point: Coming in to Half Moon Bay (KHAF) we have a standard left pattern for 12, and a right pattern for 30. To the West is ocean and a big radome (presumably the right pattern 30 is to keep people from overflying the coastal preserve and/or the radome) and to the East is some fairly hostile terrain.
Coming from the North, 30 is normally in use and it's the calm wind runway, and it's very easy to enter the pattern coming from that direction. If 12 is in use, one either has to overfly the airport or the ocean and overfly the pattern to maneuver for the 45 (not such a great idea) or maneuver uncomfortably close to terrain in order to avoid traffic on the 12 downwind leg and cut a very hard 360 to join the pattern (also not an ideal situation.) Which was my case a while back.
Departing, 12 was still in use and I was holding sort of the runway when another airplane called in from the North announcing his intentions for taking 30. I let him know I was lined up at 12 ready for departure, and he announced he would then take the patten for 12.
Instead of maneuvering for the downwind, he turned base for 12 and landed. I didn't have a particular problem with that, I had plenty of time to get off. And quite honestly, I wouldn't have had a personal problem if he wanted to do a straight in to 12. Although a technical no no, it seems to me that the base turn was a safer maneuver than the mickey mouse maneuvering he would have otherwise had to do. This is just one example but there are other airports out there (particularly mountain) where similar issues exist.
Thoughts? What would you do?
Case on point: Coming in to Half Moon Bay (KHAF) we have a standard left pattern for 12, and a right pattern for 30. To the West is ocean and a big radome (presumably the right pattern 30 is to keep people from overflying the coastal preserve and/or the radome) and to the East is some fairly hostile terrain.
Coming from the North, 30 is normally in use and it's the calm wind runway, and it's very easy to enter the pattern coming from that direction. If 12 is in use, one either has to overfly the airport or the ocean and overfly the pattern to maneuver for the 45 (not such a great idea) or maneuver uncomfortably close to terrain in order to avoid traffic on the 12 downwind leg and cut a very hard 360 to join the pattern (also not an ideal situation.) Which was my case a while back.
Departing, 12 was still in use and I was holding sort of the runway when another airplane called in from the North announcing his intentions for taking 30. I let him know I was lined up at 12 ready for departure, and he announced he would then take the patten for 12.
Instead of maneuvering for the downwind, he turned base for 12 and landed. I didn't have a particular problem with that, I had plenty of time to get off. And quite honestly, I wouldn't have had a personal problem if he wanted to do a straight in to 12. Although a technical no no, it seems to me that the base turn was a safer maneuver than the mickey mouse maneuvering he would have otherwise had to do. This is just one example but there are other airports out there (particularly mountain) where similar issues exist.
Thoughts? What would you do?