The AIC defines a
general area defined by visual ground references, where it is
suggested you might light to fly around between two altitudes.
I hate to be cynical, but if I was heading that way I would totally avoid that 'VFR holding area'. All these guys flying around doing their rate one procedure turns, looking at their watches, calculating wind speed and direction so they get their inbound leg close to a minute, making sure they call out on the radio where and where they are with respect to some VOR radial intersection they have just invented, but nobody else knows where the hell it is.
I thought I understood all this stuff but my head is now spinning
Stay well away from there! Some idiot with his head in the cockpit might bump into you.
I wonder what was it like to live back in the days when you didn't need electricity to make a plane fly.
Missed This!!!!
If a hold is left-hand, it will always be stated clearly that it is a left-hand hold; otherwise there would be chaos.
IFR talk here boys and girls!
Planes will be assigned holding altitudes which ensure vertical separation, so even if one plane incorrectly holds in the opposite direction to the others there will not be 'chaos' in the hold. IN fact if you were in IMC you wouldn't even know somebody else was playing the fool.
As was correctly pointed out, you (generally) fly a hold so your inbound leg time is the same for all aircraft, and as aircraft fly at different speeds and never get it quite right, two planes flying a hold at the same altitude would eventually collide even if they were both flying left hand turns.
The 'direction' of a hold is specified to ensure the plane remains within protected airspace. Using a simplistic example, if the hold is 'left hand', and you fly it left hand, you will not hit anything on the ground. If you fly it 'right hand', this guarantee does not apply.
Clear as mud???