It only takes one...

On Tue, 1 May 2007 21:55:56 -0400, "Kyle Boatright"
wrote:

This evening, one careless, clueless, oblivious, inattentive (choose one)
pilot made a shambles of the pattern at my home field for 10 minutes.

It was 20 minutes before dusk and the flock was returning home - there were
aircraft in the pattern and at least 3 inbound. A guy (in a Cessna)
announced a midfield crossover entry into the pattern for a touch and go,
but indicated that he'd have to extend his downwind because he was 500'
above pattern altitude. Fair enough, I thought - the guy is gonna fly a
normal downwind + 1/2 mile.

Long story short, the guy flew a normal downwind plus 2.5 miles, and his
downwind was literally a mile wide to boot...

So the airplane behind him (another Cessna) had to fly the same B-52
pattern, the Grumman behind *him* had to fly a B-47 pattern, and I followed

No he didn't.

with a B-29 pattern. Two inbound aircraft recognized that the traffic
pattern was a mess and opted to do loiter outside the pattern to let things
correct themselves.

What I see happen here is the guy flying the wide and or long base is
very likely to find him, or her self outside the pattern with a whole
group of planes flying the normal patterns.

When you have a mix of every thing from ultra lights to high
performance twins you can easily have two on down wind with one a city
block out and another a mile out.

the same is true for the long down wind. Every one thinks they are
headed else where regardless of their radio calls.

It leads to a lot of neck swiveling trying to find the errant plane,
but we are lined right up with the 14 VOR approach into MBS. Planes
flying the VOR 14 *should* be about a 1000 feet above our pattern, but
VFR traffic will often be not much above our pattern and a plane 2
miles out does not appear to be in the pattern. Soooo...Those
stretching the pattern way out to the side or in length often turn
final to find as many as two on base on one on final ahead of them. On
a busy day if they fly both wide and long it could be even more.

No one...well not many stay inside on purpose, but they really can't
claim they were cut off when they are so far out pilots in the pattern
think they were headed some where else. We had that happen when a
Mooney flew a very wide and long pattern and fund an ultra light and
another plane on base and final ahead of him. He found no sympathy
from the other pilots or airport manager when he complained. Actually
the manager wanted to know why he was flying a non standard pattern.




Then the original Cessna flying doofus flew an abbreviated upwind and
crosswind after his touch and go and cut off the folks who had loitered
waiting for everything to sort itself out. Aargh! I don't think I'll ever
understand this type of pilot...

The question in my mind was... Did the Cessna flying doofus even realize
that A) he was flying a dumb and dangerous pattern, being outside of gliding
range from the field, or that B) he caused a bad chain reaction in the
pattern.??

As I said: It only takes one.