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How Do You Fly A Traffic Pattern With Fast And Slow Aircraft?

You’re entering the traffic pattern at a non-towered airport, and there’s an aircraft in front of you. It’s a J-3 Cub, and its pattern speed is 20 knots slower than yours. How are you going to manage your pattern to keep your spacing?

When non-towered airports get busy, it can be hard to keep everyone flowing smoothly in the pattern. And if you’re at an airport could have a J-3 Cub, a Cessna 172, a Cirrus SR-22, and a King Air, there’s quite a bit of coordination that needs to happen to keep everyone separated and sequenced.

The typical rule-of-thumb for flying traffic patterns is that you should let the aircraft you’re following pass behind your wing before you turn base. By doing that, you usually have enough room to let the aircraft in front of you land and exit the runway before you’re on short final.

7 Emergencies That Scare All Pilots

In your flying career, you’ll experience challenges and possibly an emergency. Hopefully it’s not one of these…

1) LOW LEVEL WINDSHEAR

You’re on short final and lose 15 knots of airspeed, causing your plane to drop suddenly, just above the ground. If it’s not reported and you don’t look closely at the weather, it’s hard to tell if and when it’ll happen. Keep your airspeed up on short final if you think you’ll encounter windshear.

2) ELECTRICAL FIRES

Electrical fires can quickly spread from behind the panel and into the cabin. If you have to immediately shut off electrical power while in IMC, you’ll find yourself in a pretty challenging situation.

10 Reasons You Should Be A Pilot

Thinking about becoming a pilot? Here are 10 reasons you should start right now.

10) NOTHING BEATS YOUR FIRST SOLO FLIGHT.

The minute you lift off the ground, you realize you’re the only person that can bring the plane back to the ground safely. And when you touch down, you realize you’ve accomplished something very few people have.

9) YOU LEARN HOW TO MAKE GOOD DECISIONS.

You need to understand situations and make decisions based on the information you have available to you. You’ll also quickly understand your limits, and what it takes to improve them.

Why Skids Are More Dangerous Than Slips

You may have heard that a skid during a stall is more dangerous than a slip, and it’s true. But, why?

Stall-spin accidents have been a problem since the first days of flight. Most of us are simply taught to keep an aircraft coordinated when stalling. But, the problem is, most stall-spin accidents don’t happen during an intentional stall. They usually happen unintentionally and down low – like when you’re turning base to final.

Here’s a common scenario: You’re turning left base to final, but you’re going to overshoot the runway. What do you do? Here’s what you absolutely shouldn’t do: You add left rudder to tighten the turn, but you don’t keep the bank and rudder coordinated – putting the airplane into a skid.

What’s The Difference Between Composite And Base Radar, And Which One Should You Use For Flying?

When you’re checking radar before your flight, you always see two radar options: composite reflectivity, and base reflectivity. When you look at both, they sometimes look the same, and other times they look very different.

So which one should you use? Should you pick the one that looks more favorable for your flight and just go for it? That’s probably not the best way to make your decision (we wouldn’t recommend it). Here’s how both of them work, and how you can use them for your next flight.

THE RADAR BASICS

As NEXRAD radar sweeps around 360 degrees looking for the next storm you need to avoid, it sends out beams in multiple elevations. The lowest elevation is typically 0.5 degrees, and it goes up from there.