Question: "Overhead Entry to Downwind?"

Here at Spruce Creek, we do initial at or below pattern altitude and
perform either a level turn break or a "popup" break, to shed speed,
followed by a tight pattern.

Again, if it's local custom, most anything would suffice. Pity there
wasn't a place in the AOPA airport handbook to indicate these local
quirks.

My home field has a nuclear plant a few miles to the south, and the
local rule since 9/11 is never to point your plane in its direction.
The ocean is a couple miles east, so most traffic is coming from the
west.

When we must land to the north, therefore, most of us get on the 45
from the west, then cross over at mid-field or at the south end,
making a left turn onto downwind (no doubt to the joy of those who
believe that right turns onto downwind are "illegal").

I suppose every airfield has these local quirks. We have a "calm wind
runway" also, and so do other fields I've landed at. One even uses the
favored runway up to a 5 knot tailwind.


all the best -- Dan Ford
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