FOOLISH TRAFFIC PATTERNS

Two months ago, I concluded the column with this statement: "Pilots talk about pattern safety; very few practice anything close to it…the huge majority of single-engine GA pilots…fly unsafely in the pattern." If you have ever been concerned because the pilots ahead of you in the pattern appeared to be practicing their cross-country skills, you've probably reached the same conclusion and asked the same question: "What are they doing out there–haven't they heard of engine failures?"

For me, large, unsafe traffic patterns are an established fact; the next step is to question how we got here. The most reasonable place to start looking for answers is initial flight training. And the most reasonable people to blame are the CFIs who taught this stuff in the first place. But we have to be fair: big traffic patterns are a natural part of early landing instruction. Students learning to make stabilized approaches and coherent arrivals need time–lots of it–so it's only natural to see extended downwinds and wide base legs during the early stages of primary training.

The problem is, then, that these procedures become habit and never get fixed. Student pilots are apparently seldom told that safety demands they tighten things up once they begin to get the hang of flying in the pattern. Why not?

Now we're beginning to get to the meat of the problem. Here are two suggestions:

But while it is tempting to stop here and simply blame the Feds--all training deficiencies can ultimately be laid at their doorstep--it isn't really very productive. At some point, even if never told, it should occur to every pilot that once within gliding distance of a runway, it makes the most sense to stay that way. If you remain ignorant for a long time, you can't just keep blaming other people–there has to be personal responsibility.

One reason for big patterns, of course, is that they are easier to fly: more distance gives you more time to get things under control. Still, for anybody who has given the matter much thought, the added benefit of "close-in" approaches far outweighs the effort needed to learn how to do them, so the added skills don't create a significant barrier.

Thus, almost inevitably, we come to a familiar theme in this column and this conclusion: pilots who fly large traffic patterns do so because they lack the imagination needed to see why they shouldn't. It's a curious phenomenon: people who wouldn't dream of dropping down to 5-600' AGL over hostile terrain in the normal way of things do so blithely every day in traffic patterns, completely unconcerned with their lack of options in the event of engine failure. When they should be worrying where they will end up in an emergency, they are instead flying large graceful and essentially foolish downwind and base legs miles away from the runway. All because they simply haven't thought it out.

Next month: the roles played by ATC and other pilots in large patterns and some techniques for control.

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