Gary....the issue for me is not everyone is going to know what to expect with this maneuver. It's not common knowledge. If you're doing something different the student won't know how to be courteous with you. They will continue to fly what they were trained.....and frankly I'm not a military joc or an RV guy....so in my 30 years of flying I'd be perplexed with your flying. So, why not fit in with what everyone else is doing? ....and be boring? Isn't that the safer thing to do? If you're the sole person landing....by all means do your show stuff.

Even with a tower....they don't always help with de conflicting traffic....we had a Cirrus fly into a R44 at our towered airport...So I'm very sober with what tower tells me to do.

The same way everyone else is. Courtesy, and happy to yield to those less maneuverable.

In our area south of Minneapolis between the ATP flight school out of KFCM, and Minnesota State out of KMKT, I hear thinks on the radio all the time like: "bugsmasher 23; RNAV 14 dumb@$$ inbound". Which as we know means nothing to a VFR pilot, it does make the future airline pilot feel like their pants are a bit tighter.

My point being; someone saying 3 mile initial for a left hand break is something most pilots can figure out better than what I see being taught by multiple schools.

I can't believe this has made it so many pages, yes its legal, yes its easy, yes its safe.

The first time I heard the "right teardrop for the left downwind" nonsense was at a fly-in breakfast, and those jokers clobbered up the radio with that crap so bad (mostly getting their left and right confused and then correcting themselves) that no one could get a word in edgewise. I had NO idea what that was supposed to mean or what it was describing because it wasn't common knowledge back then... so, I just called the initial, found my interval while flying overhead just below Vne, followed my interval and landed. I didn't know what to expect, but the SAFEST thing I could fly while I figured it out was the overhead. When I got on the ground, I looked up the FAA's recommended procedures, and I realized those jokers were doing it COMPLETELY wrong (WAY too tight of a descending turn - usually followed by an enormous downwind that would make a B-17 blush).



Good! Then I can certainly work around them (just as an instrument pilot flying a practice instrument approach would do while the student has no idea what a FAF is or what a circling approach is)... while I fly the way *I* was trained. Then, when we get on the ground, we can meet up and I can tell them all about this mysterious thing called "the overhead." I probably make new friends, the student learns, the CFI learns, and we all win.

If our goal is to use the proverbial "student" as the excuse to not enhance our aviation knowledge and experience, we are doomed.



Why not expand your aviation knowledge? Should we turn off practice approaches, too? Why demand that everyone be boring? What makes you think "boring" equals "safer?"

Matt.....I'm turning 60 this year. I find comfort and safety in a "routine". It's hard enough not forgetting the known check lists and maintaining that "routine" I've come to learn in the +30 years I've been flying. It's kinda nice to know what to expect from others also....

I'm not interested in going upside down....been there dun it.....I'm not interested in rolling and spinning every aircraft I fly.....dun it cept for the Bonanza.....and I'm certainly not interested in flying a circus pattern around the pattern at my airport with lots of students....while everyone else is wondering what in the heck is he doing....we need to give that Nomex guy space. We already have left and right patterns for the same runway. I just want to go get my $100 burger and a load of crabs from the Eastern shore....navigate the SFRA and the class B airspace and make it back as stress free as possible.

So....boring is kinda fun for me.

Scott,

My point was the controller has the authority literally to control aircraft in the pattern to create the necessary space for the overhead break to be done safely.

That doesn’t happen at an uncontrolled field.

With the overhead break we’d have pilots coming in using a non-standard pattern entry flying quite a bit faster than others in the pattern.

Add in the very slow tail draggers (popular at my home base), NORDO aircraft (also popular) and gliders (we have those too) and it’s just not a great recipe for success.

If no one is around I doubt anyone cares.

Scott,

My point was the controller has the authority literally to control aircraft in the pattern to create the necessary space for the overhead break to be done safely.

Yes, I understood that. In busy airspace like I worked at GFK, 4-6 in each pattern pretty much all day long, an overhead simply ruins the sequence. Not only am I working those 4-6 doing T&G's but there's always a few departures lined up and 3-5 more inbound to the two reporting points 3 miles away that have to be worked into either my pattern or the controller who's running the parallel. We then have the helicopters that we run between the parallels.



I've seen several attempts at groups of RV's(why's it always RV's?) here at Seeley try the overhead. I get that it's fun but not in a million years is it more efficient. It takes minutes longer to land the airplanes than if they would simply have followed one another in the pattern. The flying gymnastics and ridiculous traffic calls are comical.

If you're sequencing yourself (at a non-towered field) behind slower traffic that's already in the downwind, you simply start your break appropriately later, as required.

Military fields* that mix different types with different pattern speeds usually have their course rules include details with the relative position of your interval: i.e. abeam you or behind for like traffic, at least 45° aft of your beam for slower traffic, and/or stuff like your interval has to be at least 90° through their break turn (or complete and stabilized in their downwind, if added spacing is necessary). If you catch up too close to your interval in your approach turn such that they won't be past a certain point along the runway when you hit a corresponding point (i.e. wings level on final, or crossing the threshold) then it's a mandatory waveoff for you.

Nobody has to rush. As long as everybody moves reasonably and with a purpose then there's nothing that hasn't been figured out and found to work a long time ago. And if there are a few slowpokes (everybody is new sometime and students need space to learn) then there are simple and workable rules of thumb for that- and that is my point, there are rules of thumb that are well known and understood by anybody who's ever been taught how to do a break or overhead.


I once had to go around, in an RJ, for a Citabria way ahead of us. We called outside the FAF as a 7~8 mile final just as he called a mile final. 6000' runway with a midfield turnoff to the combined FBO and air carrier ramps (1000' elevation... what I'm getting at was landing performance was NOT a factor for either airplane). We were going 140 and I figured he would be about 40, and I thought great, the math should work fine** and we won't even come close to crowding this guy (courtesy is a big part of airmanship for me). Well surprise surprise, when we were a few miles out, he mozied past that turnoff and used every inch of that runway... sigh.

So even without some crazy wannabe hot shot pilots in their high speed bugsmashers confusing everybody else with the mysterious overhead, sometimes the other guy does something that is the opposite of courtesy and sensibility unexpected and you just have to go around.


* includes floating ones and expeditionary ones

** good chance a Citabria has a red-blooded pilot inside who doesn't fly bomber patterns at the speed of Sir-Lancelot-the-Brave-Charging-Swamp-Castle

Yes, I understood that. In busy airspace like I worked at GFK, 4-6 in each pattern pretty much all day long, an overhead simply ruins the sequence. Not only am I working those 4-6 doing T&G's but there's always a few departures lined up and 3-5 more inbound to the two reporting points 3 miles away that have to be worked into either my pattern or the controller who's running the parallel. We then have the helicopters that we run between the parallels.



I've seen several attempts at groups of RV's(why's it always RV's?) here at Seeley try the overhead. I get that it's fun but not in a million years is it more efficient. It takes minutes longer to land the airplanes than if they would simply have followed one another in the pattern. The flying gymnastics and ridiculous traffic calls are comical.

Matt....be real. The training is much different at a military base. For both controllers and pilots.

Flying a pattern is flying a pattern; the training isn't that different in that regard. If the training IS that different with respect to pattern operations, we have a very serious problem in the CFI and tower controller world. The fact that this thread even exists and SO many pilots have no idea how to fly this pattern suggests to me that our GA training could use some work. Still, it can be flown well by military and civilian pilots alike at both controlled and uncontrolled airport, and it is not remotely the trainwreck previously described.

Matt....I've been flying since 1982. I've never seen this over head break while I was flying in the pattern. I have seen it from the ground a few times. It's rare at KFDK home of AOPA. Do I know all the elements and call outs for this....nope. Do I want to do one....nope. Could I learn to fly like you....probably. It can't be all that hard. Do I need to?....that's a good question.

I fly practice approaches and I try and make my call outs for the students who have not a clue about the fixes and locations of the approach. I do try and blend in with the "flow"....vs making my own ebbs and tides.

Flying a pattern is flying a pattern; the training isn't that different in that regard. If the training IS that different with respect to pattern operations, we have a very serious problem in the CFI and tower controller world. The fact that SO many pilots have no idea how to fly this pattern suggests to me that our GA training could use some work. Still, it can be flown well by military and civilian pilots alike, and it is not remotely the trainwreck previously described.

Just so ya know....if you start talking to Goose about an initial somewhere then roll out here....and knocking off such and such......I'm prolly gonna do a 360 and wait for all y'all to land.