Standard overhead joins

[FlyingForFun]

Agree - always check the local procedures first.

I flew into Andrewsfield last year. I've only been there once, so I may have the details slightly wrong, but for those who don't know it, it has two parallel grass runways. Only one will be in use at any one time, and all circuits are to the north. Can't remember the runway numbers, but let's say 09/27 for the sake of argument. All the procedures (including the circuit directions) are clearly written up in Pooleys, etc.

On the day I was there, runway 27L was in use. The response from the A/G guys when asked for joining information was along the lines of "QFE xxxx, runway 27 left, right-hand circuit."

I was shocked to hear another guy on the radio who'd misheard the radio call, and thought it was a left-hand circuit. Mis-hearing the radio call I can understand. But there is no excuse for not knowing, before you leave, what the circuit direction is!

I was even more shocked to discover, afterwards, that the pilot was actually the guy who I was meeting there - although this did, at least, give me a chance to talk to him and find out how he managed to misunderstand the circuit direction. He said he mis-heard the radio call and thought it was a left-hand circuit. He only realised his mistake when he was about to join crosswind, and found other traffic coming straight towards him. He initially assumed that the other traffic was departing to the north, and had illegally turned against the circuit direction, and only realised it was his mistake when he heard the other traffic calling downwind.

And the same goes for all other local procedures. At White Waltham, for example, the 1300' join is there for a very good reason - half of the ATZ is Class A, and there's a special exemption to the normal Class A requirements for traffic departing, joining or flying in the circuit - but only up to 1500'. If you try to join overhead at 2000', you're gonna make the guys at Heathrow very unhappy!

The "overhead join" where you overfly the runway, which AerBabe mentions, is in force in several places. I believe it's an option at Thruxton, for example. I have to admit, I can't see the point of it, and here's why:

The three main benefits of the overhead join are: 1) look for other traffic, 2) familiarise yourself with the airfield if it's not somewhere you fly regularly, 3) look at the signal square.

Looking for other traffic is great - let's funnel all the traffic directly overhead the runway, all at exactly the same height, and then let everyone look for everyone else! At least if you join downwind, different pilots/aircraft will quite possibly fly the downwind leg in different places. Not quite as good as a normal overhead join, where everyone will fly a slightly different track until they've had plenty of time to look for traffic, and there's more than enough time to slot in with other traffic - but the overhead-the-runway join doesn't give you any chance to see traffic at all before you're on the same track as it is.

Familiarisation with the airfield is also not easy with this type of join - you've got to identify the runway, and figure out the landing direction, before you can overfly the runway - and by the time you've done this, there's not much more familiarisation that can be done.

And looking at the signal square - if you haven't figured out which direction to land in yet, how do you know which direction to overfly the runway in? If possible (and sometimes it isn't) I'd think it would be better to fly overhead at, say, 3000' to look at the signal square if I'm non-radio, so that I can join in the correct direction. If that's not possible, I'm not sure - I guess you'd have to get a telephone briefing to find out the runway in use, and then, until you can actually see the signal square and confirm this, be very alert for oncoming traffic in the opposite direction.

So none of the benefits of the regular overhead join seem to apply for the overhead-the-runway join. Maybe someone who's based at a field that uses this procedure would like to comment?


The main thing to come out of this, though, is always check the local procedures!

FFF
-------------