"CUT-LUNCH" Circuits....Or 'Minor Cross Country's'..
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Sydney
Age: 60
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Funny thing is, in the Airlines we do a "heavy" circuit with a 2 mile offset from centerline at 1500' and roll out on a 2 mile final.
For airline cadets to learn properly they need to do 1000' circuits at the same angle so closer than 1.5 miles.
It's all about the instructors and their instructors etc teaching crap over many years!
This was going on 30 years ago and will no doubt continue.
For airline cadets to learn properly they need to do 1000' circuits at the same angle so closer than 1.5 miles.
It's all about the instructors and their instructors etc teaching crap over many years!
This was going on 30 years ago and will no doubt continue.
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Oz
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It's all about the instructors and their instructors etc teaching crap over many years!
This was going on 30 years ago and will no doubt continue.
This was going on 30 years ago and will no doubt continue.
Many instructors have taught Qantas cadets who are required to pass a flight test with a certain QLD-based ATO. This guy pushes the 3 deg profile methodology and believes the approach should involve a fair bit of power. His words to a group of instructors one day was (roughly) "in jets they have to approach with a large amount of power on. They can't do low-powered approaches, otherwise the engines wouldn't be able to spool up in time in the case of a go around. I want students to use this powered approach technique". What do you think happened if a student flew a circuit like most of us know is possible in a typical light GA aircraft? They failed the approach/landing part of the flight test.
I think this belief is a little extreme - I like to sit in the middle of this whole debate. Yes, you need to fly a circuit and approach that is applicable to the aeroplane you are flying - it is a PA28, not a 737. However, getting a student into good aimpoint/airspeed habits early on is also important.
Poor form is instructors teaching:
- Wide, slow circuits, which holds everyone else up in an attempt to achieve a 3 deg profile on final (sure, it takes a few lessons to get the pattern down-pat, but don't let the habit continue!).
- Close circuits with a steep approach angle and little/no power because "you never know when the engine is going to fail!".
We teach people circuits so they can learn what power/attitude/aimpoint/configuration leads to a safe and stable approach/landing, not only now, but for their future flying as well. How many accidents have occurred over the years because of a poor approach? How many deaths? Now compare that to how many deaths have occurred because the engine failed in the circuit? We're not flying Tigermoths anymore! Yes, be safe, but think about the big picture when teaching people circuits.
There seems to be a fair bit of penis measuring in the previous posts. To those heros boasting because they can fly a tight circuit - get your hand off it.
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: turn L @ Taupo, just past the Niagra Falls...
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Originally Posted by ThePaperBoy
To those heros boasting because they can fly a tight circuit - get your hand off it...
Whilst you make some good and valid points in the bulk of your post, your final phrases have me wondering at the latent jealousy/anger apparent there. Do you have trouble flying a tight circuit TPB? Why the hostility???
It may surprise you that there are places on this fair planet that, what are known as "Canterbury Circuits" where I come from are not only not recommended best practice, they can be dangerous and in some places are quite impossible. You have no choice but to fly an appropriate, comfortable easily controlled circuit without ever venturing much more than 0.5 - 1.0NM from the landing area. In some places you may find yourself doing so in a stream of aircraft, often including 172, 206, 207, 208, BN2, PA31, 402 -not to mention the rotary wing, and sometime Nomad & Twotter. That stream may comprise up to 40-50 individual airframes at a time, and everybody contributes equally to a smooth and expeditious flow. There are even aircraft joining the E-W circuit pattern from the S -at mid-downwind, circuit altitude. The whole turn-around from aircraft inbound to aircraft outbound within the flow can take place for all those aircraft within 60 minutes. The "tight" (I think of it as "comfortable") circuit is utterly dictated by terrain. All it takes to disrupt that smooth flow is one poorly-briefed or totally unprepared individual who tries to "stretch" things to compensate their lack of preparedness -or lack of ability to expect and get appropriate performance from themselves and their aircraft.
Whilst I have never met you QLD ATO -nor ever attempted to fly a 3deg glide-slope VFR, I am firmly of the belief that the students' training should progress in degrees of difficulty until they can appropriately and competently fly a circuit to meet the demands of whatever aircraft or situation they are likely to find themselves in. That will include 3deg glide-slopes (probably IFR is most appropriate for that?), sight-picture circuits that encompass the changes in sight-picture with varying runway lengths and widths, as well as your position and altitude on the approach, "tight" circuits which I personally think of as a basic tenet of airmanship and courtesy to other airspace users, and -dare I say it- space-shuttle approaches that may be appropriate to certain airframes, locations and circumstances.
It's all "horses for courses" -what's strapped to your arse right now, where you intend taking it, what it's (and you are!!!) capable of and what do you need to do with it.
Teaching a student just one approach variant is doing them a major disservice. 3deg glideslopes, stabilised approaches, 5-mile final circuits et al in a bug-smasher are a nonsense and indefensible. These candidates may spend the next 10 years in GA before ever getting to "use" their 747-size circuits in anger. Isn't it everyone's responsibility to fly appropriately to what you're in and where?
I certainly think it is.
