Craziness in the Stapleford pattern
 

I took off from North Weald (SE England, U.K.) the other day and departed to the South East.

Found myself in direct conflict with several light aircraft in the pattern OUTSIDE THE ATZ at Stapleford!

I was very certain I was and remained outside their ATZ.

When flying the pattern, please remember to REMAIN INSIDE if possible. Or enlarge the ATZ if need be. Otherwise the ATZ no longer protects you and me. :ugh:

Thank you!

Yes, some folks ought to take a map when flying bomber circuits.... :bored:

In the circuit or outside of it, it's still Class G airspace and 'see & be seen' applies...

But I agree with you wholeheartedly!!:ok:

Stapleford is bonkers and half the planes doing mad things have an instructor in the RHS. I won't go there again. I was on final, got cut up from the left, went around, on final again and got cut up from the right. It seems to be a local culture. I am sure they are happy with it.

Have they made up some rule that aircraft from Stapleford may not leave the ATZ?
It should be no surprise that there are people leaving and returning to Stapleford.

I think he's referring to people leaving the ATZ whilst remaining in the local circuit; certainly that's something I've experienced at Stapleford.

In my opinion Stapleford is the most dangerous airspace in England.I have been cut up on approach more times there than the rest of all the other airfields put together.

One time I was going into there for radio work.I had to brake off from finals 4 times.
On the 5th attempt I was cut up on very short finals by a Cessna 150 cutting in from the right. I was fuming by this time so despite knowing it was wrong I continued the approach in perfect formation about 15 ft off his wing tip, only going around from the flair.
I did a tight circuit and landed off it successfully and taxied in next to the offending aircraft just as the pilot clad in WW11 style Irvine Jacket with RAF gloves etc was helping his similarly clad girlfriend from the right hand seat.

When I asked if he had seen me I just got a dirty look and a brief " NO ". I pointed out how close we were and he just picked up his flight bag ( the size of an average suitcase ) , grabbed his girlfriend by the arm steering her away from me and snarled over his shoulder " Well I radioed "

In circuit or not you are allowed to leave the ATZ. There are published circuits for Stapleford which I believe is agreed with North Weald because of the procsimity. The circuit is a bit wider than usually for noise abatement, but in any case you may have to extend downwind for spacing.
If the ATZ was wider it would seriously hinder east-west traffic between the London and Stansted areas.

In accordance with Rule 45 If you leave the ATZ then you have no priority in the circuit!

If that is commonplace at Stapelford, no wonder people are getting cut up on final.

Why are many people so abysmally poor when it comes to flying something as simple as a basic visual circuit?

Of course when you get people trying to fly spamcans like airliners, positioning straight-in and then dragging themselves in from 2 mile final on 3 deg approaches in little C152s, it's hardly surprising that problems arise.

Ah! the 2 mile final in a C150. Reminds me of Biggin Hill in the mid '70s. You'd go up for a bit of practice in the Circuit and end up doing mini cross countries to avoid cutting inside fellow puddle jumpers on their not very short Final. :mad:

One company I worked for had a let down into a private HLS. It involved flying over an NDB on a local airfield. When we used it we always called on the airfield frequency, for obvious reasons, and always gave way to traffic in the pattern or joining.

Two colleagues of mine (two pilot ops, both very experienced, long term ex-military pilots) once watched slightly bemused as a light aircraft flew under them; no radio call being heard from it. They assumed at first that it was carrying out a non-radio overhead join, so they gave way to it. But it maintained altitude then turned ninety degrees away from the field and departed again.

After landing they received an angry phone call from an instructor. He was livid that his student had been inconvenienced during his circuit practice. My colleagues couldn't understand how this aircraft had been in the circuit from the way it had been flown. As the conversation continued it became apparent that the aircraft was actually practicing so-called "circuits" at another airfield six miles away!

My colleague (he was the chief pilot of our company) told the instructor to file an AIRPROX so the radar tapes could be examined. The instructor went very quiet and that was the end of the conversation, no AIRPROX was ever filed.

Compared to some places, personally I find Stapleford quite good!

Far worse are, for example, Sywell or Elstree.

But in principle, I agree. In an ideal world, a circuit should allow you to glide to the runway from pretty much anywhere on downwind or base, with a fighting chance crosswind. I get fed up of airfields where I join the circuit, and lose sight of the airfield whilst maintaining positioning with the aircraft in front!

Apart from anything else, it costs too damned much money.

G

The problem at Stapleford is not simply people flying circuits which are too large for their aircraft type. Not everybody can fly at 60kt, so extending downwind etc to follow the traffic ahead is sometimes completely correct and appropriate.

The problem there, and at other places, is that one gets cut up and that rarely works because most of the people that do it misjudge it and force the following person to go around.

'When I asked if he had seen me I just got a dirty look and a brief " NO ". I pointed out how close we were and he just picked up his flight bag ( the size of an average suitcase ) , grabbed his girlfriend by the arm steering her away from me and snarled over his shoulder " Well I radioed "'

I'm afraid if that had been me he was talking to I would have smacked him in the chops. Not good I know but there you go, I don't suffer fools gladly and who knows, he may not do it again.

Military teaching, at least when I was directly involved in it, was that extending downwind is a big "no-no", for reasons already stated. Once someone does it in a busy circuit, the pattern tends to get longer and longer.

I was once instructing at a University Air Squadron Summer camp in Scotland. We were required to fly circuits at a civvy airport. We were flying two of our circuits inside the huge circuits being flown by some other pilots in light fixed wing.

And that is a big no-no where I learnt to fly (which was quite the opposite of the military) : "sequence on final should equal sequence of entering downwind" is what I was taught. Makes sense, too.

Extending downwind for a good reason should be fine. Doing it, or ultra-wide downwind, for no good reason, isn't.

I have been known before now to use some incorrect and sarcastic RT

"G-AB, turning base and is now No.1, aircraft ahead has left the circuit".

It gets the message across, and doesn't endanger anybody.

G

So what do you do?

I understand your point, but if someone is in front of you is going slowly or making a bigger circuit than you might, (or just too much traffic to fit in a normal-sized circuit), either you have to cut in (possibly dangerously close), extend, orbit, or perhaps make S-curves for spacing. Sometimes I reckon extending downwind is the safest option.

Military way was to sort it out on the radio, or cross to the deadside and re-do your circuit.

We did have the advantage that the errant extended downwind flyer would be hauled up in front of the duty instructor on landing. :cool: