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:

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.