Patterns – Week 4 – 3/13/24
Luke P -
One of the hardest parts about learning to fly an airplane is learning to constistently make smooth landings. As part of our training we practice landings by flying in something called the pattern. It’s really simple, its just a rectangle that we use to takeoff and return to the runway with. When we take off from the runway we are flying something called the upwind leg which isn’t a term that gets used very often. We climb until a certain altitude or distance from the runway, whichever comes later. After the other leg we turn crosswind which is another not commonly used term. The crosswind leg is flown directly perpendicular to the direction of the runway to put some distance between the plane and the runway. When making a pattern we make sure we are within a close enough distance to the runway so that in the unlikely event of an engine failure we would be able to “safely” glide back to the runway. The next leg is the downwind which is a commonly used term. The downwind is flown parallel to the runway but in the opposite direction. When we see that we are at the end of the runway we begin our downwind checklist which is short, but needs to be swift. Now I can very quickly recite it, but when I was learning the pattern, the task loading of flying the airplane and performing checklist items was a little much and I would often do things in the wrong order or miss items. If the downwind checklist was completed properly, we should be descending and slowed up to 65-70kts indicated airspeed. Around 700 feet above ground level we turn to the base leg which is perpendicular to the runway like the crosswind but this time heading the other direction. The base leg is quick so the checklist has to be done swiftly or else we go past the runway and have to go back around the pattern. Once we’ve completed the base leg we look to the runway and begin our final leg which is actually called a “final”. In Flagstaff we have a PAPI(precision approach path indicator) which are lights that shine a certain color depending on your angle to the runway. It’s super helpful information so depending on the lights we see, we either descend quicker or slower so when we get to the runway, we’re in the right place. From there we land the plane (hopefully smoothly) and repeat the pro
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