Andrew Sarangan wrote:
Jon Kraus wrote in
:


Funny Mark.... my DE busted his IFR ride on the hold too... He said
hold wasn't even close to being racetrack shaped or anywhere near the
racetrack :-) Like others have said this doesn't mean anything in
the big picture.... Thanks again. JK



When you have a crosswind, the hold will not be a race track pattern. The
outbound should not be parallel to the inbound if there is a crosswind.

Bless you, Andrew. I was about to jump in and say the same thing. The idea that
holding patterns are supposed to be racetrack-shaped is commonly held and is a
source of difficulty in doing holds well.

I'm not an instructor of any kind, but I've been instrument rated for a few
years and have flown as safety-pilot with a lot of different instrument pilots
doing holds for currency.

I often see pilots trying to make the outbound leg parallel to the inbound leg,
and it just doesn't work that way when there's a wind blowing across the inbound
course. Pilots with GPS seem to be particularly prone to this error.

Think about the turn radius on the downwind turn versus the turn radius on the
upwind turn, and you'll see why the outbound and inbound legs can't be parallel.

Dave
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