How often do you have to go around?

"Wade Hasbrouck" wrote in message
...
If you are overtaking planes, you obviously should have waited longer
before making your downwind to base turn... The general rule I was taught
for the 172 is, provided you haven't "creeped in on your downwind", once
the landing traffic passes your wing tip, you can begin your turn to final
and it works out just about right... some times I will wait just a little
bit longer just to give a little extra space.


One SMALL Correction that I just noticed.... ARRGGHHH my fingers don't
always type what I want, as I am "editor type" when it comes to e-mail and
news postings (i.e. will write something, not like the wording or someting
and edit/wirte it differently...) :-)

The "general rule" sentence in the paragraph above should be:

"The general rule I was taught for the 172 is, provided you haven't 'creeped
in on your downwind', once the landing traffice passes your wing tip, you
can begin your turn to BASE, and it works out just about right..."

Kind of hard to see landing traffic pass your wingtip while ON base, and if
you did, that would probably be a big indication that you just overshot your
turn to final... :-)

Sorry about the typo... :-)

"Wade Hasbrouck" wrote:
"The general rule I was taught for the 172 is, provided you haven't 'creeped
in on your downwind', once the landing traffice passes your wing tip, you
can begin your turn to BASE, and it works out just about right..."

That's a pretty good rule of thumb when the two aircraft are flying at
similar speeds. It doesn't work when (for example), you're a 172 and the
guy on final is a Cub going 10 or 20 kts slower than you.

On the other hand, if you're a spam can mixing it up with jet traffic,
there's no reason you can't turn base long before your traffic has crossed
your wingtip. If you're doing 80 kts on base, and he's doing 130 on final,
there's no way you're going to catch him.

"Roy Smith" wrote in message
...
"Wade Hasbrouck" wrote:
"The general rule I was taught for the 172 is, provided you haven't
'creeped
in on your downwind', once the landing traffice passes your wing tip, you
can begin your turn to BASE, and it works out just about right..."

That's a pretty good rule of thumb when the two aircraft are flying at
similar speeds. It doesn't work when (for example), you're a 172 and the
guy on final is a Cub going 10 or 20 kts slower than you.

On the other hand, if you're a spam can mixing it up with jet traffic,
there's no reason you can't turn base long before your traffic has crossed
your wingtip. If you're doing 80 kts on base, and he's doing 130 on
final,
there's no way you're going to catch him.

Yes, I will admit, you do need to be cognisant (sp?) of the types of
aircraft are in the pattern, and adjust accordingly, i.e. if you are a 172
and cub is front of you, yes, I would wait a little longer before turning...

I am usually about 70 kts on base, and then about 65kts on final.

Ron Wanttaja writes:

None at our field. Don't know about elsewhere.

Speaking of Boeing field, I assumed it was a company field for Boeing.
Isn't it? What kind of traffic does it have? It seems oddly placed
so close to KSEA.

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Wade Hasbrouck wrote:

PWT gets pretty busy too... had some guy cut in front of me on final
there... :-) I was following the guy in front of me, heard him call
his base turn, saw him turn, heard him call his turn to final turn, saw
him turn... and was following him... as I turned final, I heard a guy
behind me call his base turn, while on final I heard him call his turn
to final, and while looking around thought "well, he must be behind
me..." and all of a sudden about 100' in front of me and about 50 - 100'
above me was a 172 :-) I then advised on the CTAF "Skyhawk that just
turned final... you have another Skyhawk underneath you... ON FINAL!",
Watched him for a couple seconds as started to strategize "What should I
do?" (student at the time practicing landings by myself), and if he
didn't do anything I was going to go-around left of the runway...
Couldn't go around on the right as there are skydivers over there now
(1/4 west of the airport)... but pretty soon I see flaps starting to go
up and he announces he is doing a go-around... :-) Stopped and had
lunch after that. :-)

Your smiley key is sticking...

Matt

"Wade Hasbrouck" wrote in message
...
"Roy Smith" wrote in message
...
"Wade Hasbrouck" wrote:
"The general rule I was taught for the 172 is, provided you haven't
'creeped
in on your downwind', once the landing traffice passes your wing tip,
you
can begin your turn to BASE, and it works out just about right..."

That's a pretty good rule of thumb when the two aircraft are flying at
similar speeds. It doesn't work when (for example), you're a 172 and the
guy on final is a Cub going 10 or 20 kts slower than you.

On the other hand, if you're a spam can mixing it up with jet traffic,
there's no reason you can't turn base long before your traffic has
crossed
your wingtip. If you're doing 80 kts on base, and he's doing 130 on
final,
there's no way you're going to catch him.

Yes, I will admit, you do need to be cognisant (sp?) of the types of
aircraft are in the pattern, and adjust accordingly, i.e. if you are a
172 and cub is front of you, yes, I would wait a little longer before
turning...

I am usually about 70 kts on base, and then about 65kts on final.

Other thing I just realized... If I am a 172 with jet traffic (not uncommon
at places like Boeing Field), and following the jet... Yes, I don't need to
worry about catching him, but do need to be very aware of wake turbulence,
and fly final/turn final above his path and touch down past his touch down
point, or possibly ask the controller for a different runway or "wait" (a
360 or something)... I haven't had to follow a jet yet... Have been in the
other position, where I was landing with Citation right behind me. :-) But
do realize there are aircraft (other than jets) that could in the pattern
that are faster than me...

Wade Hasbrouck writes:

I have found spotting traffic in MSFS is unrealistically hard to do, unless
you turn on the little red labels for the planes that they have ...

I'm pleased to hear that, as I manage to spot only about one aircraft
in ten when I'm advised of traffic. Even turning in every which way
to look for it doesn't help, and if I find it it rarely seems to be
where ATC told me it would be (four o'clock could be anywhere from
three to nine).

Much easier to spot a Cessna on a 3 mile final to Renton from the Renton
downwind in real life than in MSFS. This proably because the traffic in
flight sim isn't more than a pixels wide until are basically on top of them.

It helps to run at 1600x1200, but it's still hard to make out the
shape of the aircraft until it's quite near. I'm not sure what
purpose seeing traffic serves in MSFS, anyway, since the simulator
doesn't simulate much else having to do with traffic and I have yet to
see any real conflicts.

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Wade Hasbrouck writes:

If you are overtaking planes, you obviously should have waited longer before
making your downwind to base turn... The general rule I was taught for the
172 is, provided you haven't "creeped in on your downwind", once the
landing traffic passes your wing tip, you can begin your turn to final and
it works out just about right... some times I will wait just a little bit
longer just to give a little extra space.

Hmm ... so I go crosswind, downwind, base, final, right? If I'm on
the downwind leg, then wouldn't I be turning to base before final?
I'm having trouble visualizing this.

If I hear "make right downwind," I take this to mean (based on what
I've read) that I should join the downwind leg at some point at a
45-degree angle, and that the pattern is one in which all turns are
right turns (and thus is to the right of the runway, as seen by
someone coming straight in).

It has also been my experience that planes in MSFS are unrealistically slow
in getting off the runway, as planes would "camp out" for a bit on the
runway before leaving it, resulting in a the tower giving a go-around. It
was really frustrating, as I know that is not typical in real life.

Good. I try to get off the runway quickly myself.

Too bad there isn't a Virtual FAA in MSFS that you put on those Virtual
Pilot's butts....

They all sound and behave the same. As it is, there's hardly every
anyone in the pattern, except maybe for one other aircraft, so one
can't easily simulate flying a busy pattern. Then again, given my
current lack of skill in flying patterns, there might be bodies and
aircraft chunks flying everywhere if I had to negotiate a pattern with
other aircraft in it.

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Wade Hasbrouck writes:

"The general rule I was taught for the 172 is, provided you haven't 'creeped
in on your downwind', once the landing traffice passes your wing tip, you
can begin your turn to BASE, and it works out just about right..."

Ah, now I am far less confused!

Now, how are you looking at the traffic when you try to check if it
has passed your wingtip?

Kind of hard to see landing traffic pass your wingtip while ON base, and if
you did, that would probably be a big indication that you just overshot your
turn to final... :-)

I'm very good at undershooting and overshooting final (albeit in a
flip-of-the-coin sort of way). I only have difficulty aligning with
the runway.

And for some reason, I always seem to drift slightly left just as I'm
coming up on decision height. I don't know what does this. The
engines are usually near idle, so it doesn't seem like it'd be a
sudden surge of torque or anything. And it seems improbable that the
surface winds are _always_ blowing to the left.

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Roy Smith writes:

That's a pretty good rule of thumb when the two aircraft are flying at
similar speeds. It doesn't work when (for example), you're a 172 and the
guy on final is a Cub going 10 or 20 kts slower than you.

Does this mean that you have to know how fast each aircraft can or
usually does go, or can you easily tell how fast it is moving just by
watching it?

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