PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Re: Base to Final Turn
View Single Post
Old 27th July 2006 | 07:46
  #40 (permalink)  
Fournicator
Guest
 
Posts: n/a
Viffer:

Sorry mate, but I disagree with pretty much everything you've said.

When visiting another airfield you should conform to their procedures and circuit patterns. When visiting civil airfields, even when flying HM's aircraft with my work hat on, I generally do what's expected at that airfield. Despite my feelings about them, I fly wide square circuits at civil airfields, because that's what everyone else is doing. In the same way I'd expect civil aircraft visiting mil airfields to fly oval circuits. In the same way, I tend to join civil circuits in the civil way. Exceptions made to this have been when taking a formation to the airfield in question, or when a RIAB has been requested by the airfield. Even in those cases, it has been thoroughly discussed on the phone before flying, and practised only at airfields used to the procedure and with the circuit clear.

Even if you can see other circuit traffic is well clear, your actions and unfamiliar RT will at the very least cause confusion. In addition, at an uncontrolled airfield you can never be entirely sure of the circuit traffic, so giving yourself the maximum time to locate it all by doing a standard join is surely advisable?

I'd also question your motives for wanting to perform a RIAB. RIABs are designed as the most expeditious way to recover one or more high performance aircraft, where the run-in speed is much faster than the normal circuit speed. There are very few civil aircraft for which that is the case, and the only real reason I can think of for it being required at civil airfields is as a convenient way to recover formations (although there are other options, as I've had to use on occasion when visiting civil airfields who've requested we don't RIAB).

I agree that a RIAB is not inherently dangerous, but prats who try to apply a procedure designed for high performance aircraft in a controlled circuit, to a low performance aircraft in an uncontrolled environment where other users are unfamiliar with it probably are pretty inconsiderate at least, if not dangerous.