Dave Butler wrote:
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.

Well, they COULD be, but it would be a lot of work and you couldn't use
standard rate turns. You'd have to turn at a very slow rate upwind and
very fast downwind!


Matt