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

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
Remove SHIRT to reply directly.

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