I think the claim that Stapleford is the worst for in the UK circuits has been beaten by Shobdon according to this.
http://forums.flyer.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=69022

SGC

Essex boy's the driving standards are the same,I unfortunatly have to go there weekly,total culture shock

There is no good reason for extending downwind, all extensions should be upwind. If you can't get in because of traffic ahead Go Around from Downwind!

I didn't know that Whopity. So you are saying that if the one ahead is flying what appears an excessively long DW leg, the correct action is to turn base and then final and, remaining at the circuit height, go around back to DW?

"Go around from downwind" is obscure to me. Care to elaborate, Whopity?

Military (timed) circuits always seemed very sensible to me as they tended to take account of hugely different aircraft performance - you could be doing (6 minute?) circuits in a chipmunk at the same time as someone else learning to fly a Hawk without there being any issues. Sadly most airifelds are surrounded by Nimbys, who seem insist on a geographical noise-sensitive acceptable route. This precludes differing performance being able to fly without something else giving. If it seems necessary to extend outside the ATZ then surely something has gone wrong and someone needs to accept that they have to give up and try again.

That's exactly what the UK military taught in the 1970s on jet trainers. I doubt it will have changed much.

If a sucession of aircraft extend downwind one after the other, someone is going to end up in the next county (and they do).

Well, in this situation it didn't make sense; it was a ridiculous situation. The other aircraft were flying crosswind to a position outside the ATZ boundary before turning downwind and flying the downwind leg completely outside the zone, before re-entering on base leg or finals. We were also in a faster aircraft. If we had followed them we would have been unable to continue because our circuit was a military one which requires certain visual cues, close in. ATC were very happy about it and no-one had a problem because the timings worked out. We didn't cut any one up, we were just flying normal circuits with the other aircraft flying around the local area outside us.

The advantage we had was that if our engine had failed, we could have made the runway, as per our military circuit. The others? No way.

Genghis:I sympathise, having also been there many times. But I would caution against the notion that other pilots on frequency (a) hear what you're saying and (b) have any idea what it means in respect of the location of your aircraft relative to theirs. In my experience the average PPL has very poor situational awareness. When this sort of thing occurs on an A/G frequency where the A/G operator is very passive (most of them in my experience), rather than be sarcastic, my policy is to address the other aircraft directly along the lines of "G-AB from G-CD, we are established on base leg and visual with you on a long final, what are your intentions?". Also contrary to CAP 413 I know, but I believe the key to all of this is to get people speaking to each other. I get completely fed up with the usual situation at A/G fields where you get:

"G-AB final 26"
"G-AB roger"
then a few seconds later
"G-CD final 26"
"G-CD roger"
without any traffic info given, let alone requests to the offending parties as to whether they can see each other.

Speak, or forever hold your peace!

NS

I'm always very cautious of talking to another aeroplane, unless it's an emergency, or may become so if I don't. Talking via A/G seems to me more sensible, and most A/G operators have better SA than most PPLs.

G

Genghis; why?

Its always a good idea when leaving North Weald on rwy 20 to climb out to the east. Once you are past the eastern side of the village you are outside Stansted's stub at 1500' and can continue to climb. By the time you are are abeam Stapleford, you'll be at 2000' and above their traffic. Once you get to Ongar, then you can turn south east.

Beats me how Stapleford get away with being A/G; surely with their traffic levels the CAA should require something higher as they've done at two other airfields in the south east.

Genghis, at my local airfield the A/G is often manned from within the club office.... therefore with no useful SA whatsoever!

If the a/c lowest in the circuit has priority, is there any reason not to drop say 100' if the dot ahead is getting even smaller, then turn base?

Sir George Cayley

I've never had a problem when I've visited Stapleford, apart from the odd Cirrus driver.
And from when I spoke to an instructor there, he provided me with a circuit diagram which leaves the ATZ due to noise sensitive areas. I've got no problem if that's the case.

Have seen some pretty neat solutions in France:

(i) Joining traffic and anything MEP or faster flies a defined larger circuit, something like 1.5-2 wider than an "inner" circuit, which is being flown by the T&G crowd....

(ii) A box-like OHJ, flying the circuit shape, so you can more easily self-regulate your spacing relative to those ahead (far more sensible than our idiotic version)

(iii) In the case of very slow traffic (e.g. I used to fly a J-3 at one small, busy field), then that traffic flies an even tighter circuit.

Extending far on D/W 22 at Stapleford is not something you want to do much of.....you need to look with hawks eyes for traffic moving L-R using the rat-run between you and Stansted and give it 30 secs more and you are in North Weald's circuit, with some potentially fast-moving, erratic manoeuvring metal.

Within reason, are such habits engendered by PPL's uncomfortable with regulating their base leg / finals for spacing and figure extending D/W is just an Easy Life, even at the risk of a go-around?? Lack of currency an issue here?

Strikes me, in the UK we are still using the same circuit techniques we have since the 1930's, yet there may be better ways of doing things out there. Amazes me there are not more incidents....it must be a Big Sky out there....

BFA

That's what we do in Belgium, too, at most places. See
http://fed-ulm.be/gegevens/prak/ulip/pdf/EBAM.nl.pdf
for one example of an a/d that defines the circuit wider for faster planes.
And yes, overhead joins are standard too, except of course where gliders are winch-launched. Actually I think overhead join is an ICAO-recommended standard procedure.

I am positively surprised that some UK'ers have their doubts about certain UK practices - without ever having flown in the UK I had taken a solid reserve after reading some threads here.

J-O,

There are plenty of British-based pilots who think our variety of OHJ is non-ideal (see several threads on the subject...).

It basically involves joining into the overhead from any random direction and then manoeuvring to place yourself at 90 degrees to the active numbers. Once crossed, you descend on the "dead-side", turning in two stages to cross the upwind end of the runway, before passing x-wind to join somewhere downwind (most likely not more than half-way).

For me and others, there are all sorts of issues with this - e.g. you are at lower than OHJ height when crossing the climb-out path, you end up often with a D/W cut in half, the dead-side turn is not carried out by everyone in the same manner.

Done properly, you keep the airfield throughout the procedure on the same side of the aircraft and all turns are in that sense. But this assumes you know the runway you're using from far out, which, er, negates the point of the exercise....which was presumably devised pre-radio for aircraft landing in all sorts of directions.:\

Worst aspect of all probably is the scenario of several aircraft all joining overhead from multiple directions and being forced to hold in the OH. This is something I've seen at Shoreham, a very busy GA field on the South Coast, at weekends. You have no clear idea where the other traffic is and it's all holding at the same height. Insanity. :D

We really should just swallow our pride and accept the French-style system of "box-OHJ's" and inner/outer circuits. It's safer, smarter and everyone can predict where everyone else should be. It might help with noise abatement too.

...just wait for the outcry this launch in certain quarters. I'm heading for shelter....:E

BFA

It's the job of the ground operator in almost any RT environment to control the flow of communications, if the rest of us start bypassing them without immediate and pressing reasons (you've spotted something endangering an aircraft, formation calls, message relay), then in my opinion the result will be chaos.

The two (civil) exceptions I can think of are traffic calls and where an aircraft is co-ordinating a SAR operation. In both of those, there is nobody on the ground.

G

A/C to A/C comms are useful in some situations, for instance if an instructor and student are heading out to x training area and i'm on a solo bimble they may not want me in the same airspace so we can and do nominate east or west when departing:

ABC you going into the X sector
Yep sure are CDE
ABC i'll go west then
Rodger

or in the circuit we communicate informally too, say if a student is practising a glide approach or somebody is doing something funky we normally let the others know. Especially if one of the Ag tractors is doing some fast trun arounds we may communicate individually to maintain SA and separation.

Doesn't stop the muppets though who can't oreintate their approach plates to north.... or glider pilots.... sorry chaps we know we have to give way to you but flying a directly OPPOSING downwind isn't really fair.