Originally Posted by
ShyTorque
Bearing in mind that in that case, with the published circuit being right hand, perhaps “Join LEFT HAND, downwind”, with emphasis on the “left hand”, might have been less confusing.
Shy, I think, from the OP, that it was a RH circuit they were to fly so the above would not have been correct on that day. What ATC, confusingly (and in a non-standard way) seemed to mean was "join downwind on the left hand side of the airfield for a right hand cct"!!!!
The CAP used to say (and what should have been said to the OP) was "G-CD, join righthand downwind Rw 27 Ht 1000 ft QFE 1006" which specified a RH cct. It said, in explanation, "When the traffic circuit is a RH pattern it shall be specified. A LH pattern
need not be specified although it is
essential to do so when the cct direction is variable.." (their bold!).
On related thread creep, best cct ATC
ever was many years back when Southampton was GA-friendly and, with a very busy cct one Saturday, a "fly in" by a French aeroclub arrived en masse. Utter chaos ensued with, eventually, the following classic from ATC:-
"All UK traffic, Tower, all orbit your in your current positions - and keep a very good lookout - I'll call you in once they have all landed!!!". After about 5 minutes, a further 5 or 6 planes had plonked themselves onto the runway with no further ATC input and, eventually, the poor ATCO started to sequence us all back round the cct again!
It sort of reminded me of a mini-BoB - planes darting in for the numbers from all different directions. Oddly, they all managed to pick the one runway direction which, I believe by pure chance, was actually the active one!!!!
