Busted IFR Checkride

Stan Gosnell wrote:
Andrew Sarangan wrote in
. 158:


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.


Why? After the first lap, you should know where the wind is and make
appropriate heading corrections to maintain some semblance of a racetrack
pattern, and you should usually have some idea of the winds, anyway.

Because of the effect of the wind during the turns. If you fly the "off
the holding course" leg parallel to the holding course, then you will
end up either turning either too short or crossing the course on the way
back. The fly a true race track pattern with a cross wind component,
you would have to fly variable bank turns as we all did when practicing
turns around a point in the wind while practicing for our private. This
is REALLY hard to do when you can't see the ground!


In real life, though, nobody cares what the pattern looks like, as long as
you stay in protected airspace. I try to keep it as oval as possible,
though, just out of pride.

But if you do this in a stiff crosswind, you will end up having to make
one of the turns at a greater than standard rate and the other at less
than standard rate in order to roll out on the holding course each
circuit. I believe that is why the normal recommendation is to double
your inbound wind correction angle on the outbound leg (assuming you are
holding towards the station). This will give you a nonparallel outbound
course, but will allow both of your turns to be closer to standard rate.


Matt