Overhead Joins - who has priority?
Join Date: Mar 2006
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Pace........here, here, here. Landed right on the numbers with your posts.
Bjornhall: There IS another OHJ method that does work extremely well, is ordered, helpful to the pilot & avoids unnecessary turning - the French method.
This involves arriving at 90 deg to main runway orientation & ascertaining runway direction at 1500'AGL. You then turn into the relevant circuit direction & only descend to 1000'AGL once x-wind.
Is used at several gliding sites in the UK, e.g. Booker, so must have sense as this is a scenario where separation & visibility are crucial (aero-tows, low-viz gliders & parallel runway operations). It's also essentially the method used at the London TMA height-limited Denham ATZ when traffic separation on arrival cannot be gauranteed....they tend to call it "an early go-around into the circuit", but in effect it's exactly the same idea & makes a lot of safety sense.
Sure the US 45 deg method also has its logic & is faster, but doesn't allow you to "fly the circuit" or get the overhead perspective on wind/surface conditions in the same way.
I think we should be lobbying the CAA to dump this old WW1 relic & fly what is SAFEST not what is tradition....
We'll be using GPS as a navigation tool next
Bjornhall: There IS another OHJ method that does work extremely well, is ordered, helpful to the pilot & avoids unnecessary turning - the French method.
This involves arriving at 90 deg to main runway orientation & ascertaining runway direction at 1500'AGL. You then turn into the relevant circuit direction & only descend to 1000'AGL once x-wind.
Is used at several gliding sites in the UK, e.g. Booker, so must have sense as this is a scenario where separation & visibility are crucial (aero-tows, low-viz gliders & parallel runway operations). It's also essentially the method used at the London TMA height-limited Denham ATZ when traffic separation on arrival cannot be gauranteed....they tend to call it "an early go-around into the circuit", but in effect it's exactly the same idea & makes a lot of safety sense.
Sure the US 45 deg method also has its logic & is faster, but doesn't allow you to "fly the circuit" or get the overhead perspective on wind/surface conditions in the same way.
I think we should be lobbying the CAA to dump this old WW1 relic & fly what is SAFEST not what is tradition....
We'll be using GPS as a navigation tool next
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: Cambridge, England, EU
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what bugs me is arriving at an airfield with a couple of aircraft well spaced in the circuit and the runway ahead and being told to fly into the overhead do a mass of turns to end up where I already was. I would rather go straight in adjusting my speed to accomodate the other traffic where you get the best vantage point to see them.
Me: "Request straight in"
ATC: "Straight in approved, no. 3 to the xxx late downwind"
Still not difficult. You don't necessarily have to take the first offer, you can always try negotiating.
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: In the boot of my car!
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ATC: "Join overhead rw nn ..."
Me: "Request straight in"
ATC: "Straight in approved, no. 3 to the xxx late downwind
Me: "Request straight in"
ATC: "Straight in approved, no. 3 to the xxx late downwind
Sounds lovely but at some places (nameless) "request straight in"
"negative we have an aircraft in the circuit, somewhere? or did he go? anyway I am sure we will have another at some time. Join overhead."
Sounds far fetched? I can assure you there are places just like that
and usually run by commitees Pace
