AFD question

korben88

korben88

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I'm doing some practice tests and I came across this question "Refer to Crawford Airport (N38°42.25′ W107°38.62′). What is the traffic pattern for the west runway? (Refer to Figure 81 and Figure 82)"

I put left hand because of where it says RWY E-W in the AF/D and then says trees after the W indicating to me that RWT W is a standard left hand pattern

Says I'm incorrect because "The traffic pattern for the west runway (RWY 25) is a right-hand pattern. It is noted on the sectional chart excerpt (Fig. 81). Under the airport information, near Crawford Airport, the third line displays the letters “RP 25.” On the Airport/Facility Directory excerpt in Fig. 82, the section titled RWY 25 has “Rgt tfc” (right traffic) written to give pilots the pattern direction of the west runway."

If RWY 25 is the west runway, then what what is that RWY E-W all about?



PP-Figure-82.png
 
Crawford has 2 runways. A paved runway 7/25. And a turf unnumbered runway that runs E-W. According to the Sectional and the Chart Supp, runway 25 and the easterly turf runway have right traffic.

If your post quotes directly from the course, I'd have a little talk with them.
 
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According to the sectional RWY 25 and the East RWY are both RP, so I would also assume the West Rwy and 7 would both be standard traffic. (Left Pattern)
 
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Ryanb said:
According to the sectional RWY 25 and the East RWY are both RP, so I would also assume the West Rwy and 7 would both be standard traffic. (Left Pattern)
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No assumption necessary. It's left traffic unless it says right traffic ("says" in theory might be some indicator once you get to the airport, but we don't have that here).
 
There is no "West" runway. The question is malformed. While E and W in the runway identifiers may be intuited to mean east and west, neither is the name of the runway. Proper nomenclature would be Echo and Whiskey over the air. Given that, the question is ambiguous as to whether they are talking about W or 25.

If that's on the real written, it's just another freaking example of how horrendously awful, ill-proofread, and irrelevant the knowledge tests are.
 
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midlifeflyer said:
No assumption necessary. It's left traffic unless it says right traffic ("says" in theory might be some indicator once you get to the airport, but we don't have that here).
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Exactly. It's stuff like this that makes me hate written test questions.
 
midlifeflyer said:
No assumption necessary. It's left traffic unless it says right traffic ("says" in theory might be some indicator once you get to the airport, but we don't have that here).
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This is exactly my thinking. I looked up that same question in the Gleim book and it gives the same response (the op was based on groundschoolacademy.com) so that's 2 publications with the same answer.

It's like they made a question, gave 2 sources to find the answer, then based which one was correct using only the sectional.
 
The sectional and the AF/D both say that 25 and E are right traffic. That leaves 7 and W to be left traffic. The test writer really muddies things up when in the explanation he says "The traffic pattern for the west runway (RWY 25)..........

Referring to 25 as the west runway at an airport that actually has a runway designated as E-W was not very smart.
 
korben88 said:
This is exactly my thinking. I looked up that same question in the Gleim book and it gives the same response (the op was based on groundschoolacademy.com) so that's 2 publications with the same answer.

It's like they made a question, gave 2 sources to find the answer, then based which one was correct using only the sectional.
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As @luvflyin pointed out, you get the same answer even using only the Sectional.

The explanation indicates whoever put together the answer made the assumption that runway 25 was the W runway, but that's not what the Sectional of AFD says.

Edit: Gleim apparently published a question update on this, changing "the west runway" to "Runway 25". http://www.gleim.com/public/aviation/updates/PPKT_2015_Update_July.pdf Scroll down to where it talks about Question 91.
 
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Not a direct answer to the question, but groundschoolacademy is still using the old testing supplement in its questions and has not made updates to its questions/answers for the new ACS. Otherwise, I'm in agreement with Mark. And it is definitely an unnecessarily confusing question. With luck, it will go by the wayside with the current updates.
 
On the "confusing" part, it could be better written. It also requires the somewhat esoteric knowledge that some turf runways are unnumbered. I've never seen it before, but it looks like whoever put together the question and the answer didn't either :D. I suspect the E-W designation is used for Crawford precisely because it is parallel with 7/25 but has a different traffic pattern.
 
midlifeflyer said:
On the "confusing" part, it could be better written. It also requires the somewhat esoteric knowledge that some turf runways are unnumbered. I've never seen it before, but it looks like whoever put together the question and the answer didn't either :D. I suspect the E-W designation is used for Crawford precisely because it is parallel with 7/25 but has a different traffic pattern.
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It has NOTHING to do with knowing how the runways are identified. Calling it the "WEST" runway in the question is ambiguous. Neither 25 nor the W runway is specifically identified as "WEST." The term might appear to either.
We have a more common way to identify two parallel runways with different traffic patterns. We make one 25L and the other 25R .
 
This one is better than one I got on an actual written recently where the referenced chart didn't even match the question.

I reported it and randomly picked an answer. QA appears to be pretty low on the latest batch of test updates.

I probably could have dug through the new huge picture book and found the right chart somewhere but I knew I had that test in the bag, and got over a 90 on it. Decided I didn't give a crap about that question and blew it off.

I know I won't see any credit for it being totally FUBARed by whoever linked the wrong chart to the wrong question.
 
flyingron said:
It has NOTHING to do with knowing how the runways are identified. Calling it the "WEST" runway in the question is ambiguous. Neither 25 nor the W runway is specifically identified as "WEST." The term might appear to either.
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We'll agree to disagree slightly on this. I said it could have been better written. That pretty much covers "you should have said runway 25 or the westerly turf runway if that's what you meant" - and that's what the Gleim correction did.

I just read "W" and meaning the "W"est runway.

We have a more common way to identify two parallel runways with different traffic patterns. We make one 25L and the other 25R
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Got an example involving parallel paved and turf runways?

This question involved a real airport with real runways where that wasn't the case. I've seen others, even parallel paved/turf runways with the same traffic pattern in which the turf runway isn't even mentioned in the AFD.
 
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midlifeflyer said:
On the "confusing" part, it could be better written. It also requires the somewhat esoteric knowledge that some turf runways are unnumbered. I've never seen it before, but it looks like whoever put together the question and the answer didn't either :D. I suspect the E-W designation is used for Crawford precisely because it is parallel with 7/25 but has a different traffic pattern.
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A vestige of old WWII (and earlier) days when many runways in combat zones were unnumbered. Pilots would announce "landing to the west" or "taking off to the north".
 
midlifeflyer said:
As @luvflyin pointed out, you get the same answer even using only the Sectional.

The explanation indicates whoever put together the answer made the assumption that runway 25 was the W runway, but that's not what the Sectional of AFD says.

Edit: Gleim apparently published a question update on this, changing "the west runway" to "Runway 25". http://www.gleim.com/public/aviation/updates/PPKT_2015_Update_July.pdf Scroll down to where it talks about Question 91.
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Well I'm glad Gleim recognized the confusing language and made the update.
 
The runway is called "W". If you are speaking it, it is Runway Whiskey not "West."

West is just ambiguous as to which WEST ruwnay (W or 25) you're talking about in this case.
 
flyingron said:
The runway is called "W". If you are speaking it, it is Runway Whiskey not "West."

West is just ambiguous as to which WEST ruwnay (W or 25) you're talking about in this case.
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Yup. W=Whiskey and E=Echo just as A=Alpha. Whoever wrote the AF/D entry on 99V seems to think that it should be West though. "Rwy West has +15 ' building..........." That's the one spot where the word West is used. Everywhere else it's E or W and obviously means east or west. There is even an N. "Rwy 07-25 LIRL on N side from Rwy 25 end W 3800'."
 
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