Aero-Tips!

A good pilot is always learning -- how many times have you heard this old standard throughout your flying career? There is no truer statement in all of flying (well, with the possible exception of "there are no old, bold pilots.") It's part of what makes aviation so exciting for all of us... just when you think you've seen it all, along comes a scenario you've never imagined.

Aero-News has called upon the expertise of Thomas P. Turner, master CFI and all-around-good-guy, to bring our readers -- and us -- daily tips to improve our skills as aviators, and as representatives of the flying community. Some of them, you may have heard before... but for each of us, there will also be something we might never have considered before, or something that didn't "stick" the way it should have the first time we memorized it for the practical test.

It is our unabashed goal that "Aero-Tips" will help our readers become better, safer pilots -- as well as introducing our ground-bound readers to the concepts and principles that keep those strange aluminum-and-composite contraptions in the air... and allow them to soar magnificently through it.

Look for our daily Aero-Tips segments, coming each day to you through the Aero-News Network. Suggestions for future Aero-Tips are always welcome, as are additions or discussion of each day's tips. Remember... when it comes to being good pilots, we're all in this together.

Aero-Tips 03.06.06

Some IFR pilots never get holding patterns outside of training. Others are assigned holds all of the time. I know in rural areas where I’ve been based (Sedalia, Missouri and Cleveland, Tennessee come to mind), holding patterns were a part of nearly all takeoff clearances, as a way to enter the ATC system from beneath the base of radar coverage.

In training we learn all sorts of gyrations about holding pattern entries and timing the inbound and outbound legs... all good things to know, to help in orientation and visualization (moving map displays notwithstanding), and to be able to predict what you need to do next. The reality is, however, that holding patterns no longer serve a primary purpose for which they were designed -- to sequence airplanes for an approach in the days before widespread ATC radar. Our fathers and grandfathers "stacked up" in holding patterns of precise times inbound and outbound so controllers could "shuffle off the bottom of the deck" and get them on the ground as quickly as possible. We rarely do that now.

Not to minimize the importance of proper holding procedures, from an ATC standpoint it’s far more critical that we stay in our protected holding space than the precise nature of our maneuvers within that space. And that gives us a great deal of room. Look at the diagram.

When we’re cleared for a hold, we’re cleared for a block of airspace that extends:

1. Eight nautical miles from the fix on the "outbound" side of the fix
2. Four nautical miles on the "inbound end" of the fix
3. Eight miles on the "holding side," and
4. Four miles on the "nonholding side."

This gives us a 12 nm x 12 nm block of airspace, 144 square miles all our own. As long as we stay at our assigned altitude, controllers really only care that we stay "up on this shelf" until they (or we) make a decision where to go next.

Aero-tip of the day: It won’t get you through a checkride, but don’t worry too much if you don’t fly a "textbook" holding pattern if distracted by wind or other factors. It is vital, however, to stay on assigned altitude and within the 12 x 12 block.

FMI: Aero-Tips