Expensive airplanes have right-of-way

brien23

brien23

Cleared for Takeoff
Joined
May 31, 2005
Messages
1,489
Location
Oak Harbor
Display Name
Display name:
Brien
Owners of Cessna 185, Cirus by the fact their aircraft are worth more have the right-of way over all us poor old C-172 drivers. Seems like all the straight in approach with the pattern full are made by them.
 
Ultimately, is the airport a departure and destination point, or is it a practice area? If one is approaching a "full pattern", should they be denied? I always gave way.
 
According to a certain Advisory Circular, aircraft on a long, straight-in final have the right of way to land over other aircraft in the pattern when the aircraft in the traffic pattern would be in a position to cut off the traffic on the straight-in approach. ;)
 
brien23 said:
Owners of Cessna 185, Cirus by the fact their aircraft are worth more have the right-of way over all us poor old C-172 drivers. Seems like all the straight in approach with the pattern full are made by them.
Click to expand...
Don’t know about 185s, but the Cirrus guys aren’t necessarily flying straight in. They just fly patterns so wide that when they turn final, you think they are on a straight in.....
 
Fearless Tower said:
Don’t know about 185s, but the Cirrus guys aren’t necessarily flying straight in. They just fly patterns so wide that when they turn final, you think they are on a straight in.....
Click to expand...

Nah, that is the 172 bomber pattern.

Tim
 
brien23 said:
Owners of Cessna 185, Cirus by the fact their aircraft are worth more have the right-of way over all us poor old C-172 drivers. Seems like all the straight in approach with the pattern full are made by them.
Click to expand...

That's because we actually travel versus endless laps in the pattern. :p
 
When I fly cross country I’m almost always going to be on a straight in approach. In many cases these are 3-5+ hour trips...and I REALLY could use a quick straight in approach if you know what I mean. So likewise if Im at my home airport I give way.
 
teejayevans said:
When I fly cross country I’m almost always going to be on a straight in approach. In many cases these are 3-5+ hour trips...and I REALLY could use a quick straight in approach if you know what I mean. So likewise if Im at my home airport I give way.
Click to expand...
Sounds like you need to invest in a Gatorade bottle. :D
 
My CFI used to call them Mooney patterns. That's when you can hear the outer marker warning tones going off in the background as they call base to final.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Don’t know about 185s, but the Cirrus guys aren’t necessarily flying straight in. They just fly patterns so wide that when they turn final, you think they are on a straight in.....
Click to expand...

I assumed they just wanted to log cross country time while doing their three landings for currency...
 
Fearless Tower said:
Don’t know about 185s, but the Cirrus guys aren’t necessarily flying straight in. They just fly patterns so wide that when they turn final, you think they are on a straight in.....
Click to expand...

I thought the official Cirrus training school approved straight in approach was vertical from above, with a bit of wind drift at times. :rolleyes:
 
brien23 said:
Owners of Cessna 185, Cirus by the fact their aircraft are worth more have the right-of way over all us poor old C-172 drivers. Seems like all the straight in approach with the pattern full are made by them.
Click to expand...
Sounds like you have individual persons in mind then generalized people. Classic example of profiling!

Edit: I fly a 182 btw and love the straight in, but not when planes in pattern.
 
Last edited:
I always thought planes starting with a ‘1’ have to yield.
 
I think airplanes with numbers in general should give way to ones without
 
Controller nearly ran me in a Bonanza into hills yesterday so save a tri-motor Falcon 15 seconds. Unless the cheaper plane crashes, the more expensive aircraft gets priority. I'm pretty sure that is written in the ATC rule book.
 
I prefer to be going straight when landing.

Maybe I misread the question.
 
brien23 said:
Cirus by the fact their aircraft are worth more have the right-of way over all us poor old C-172 drivers. Seems like all the straight in approach with the pattern full are made by them.
Click to expand...

Entered the downwind in light rain at the home drome. One of the line guys piped up that FAA was on site and to pull up to the FBO as they wanted a ramp check. Preparing to turn base to final, a Cirrus on a straight in, not on frequency and no lights took front position and I called a go-around (I saw him as I was mid base so it wasn't close). Landed, and he was fiddling with something and then cuts me off WALKING into the FBO. FAA guy saw everything and ramped him instead;):)
 
I'm going to throw this out there, for whatever it's worth...

People who own bigger, more expensive planes are more likely to be the sort who bought their plane to go places. That being the case, they're also more likely to have an instrument rating and, even on a clear day, be on an IFR flight plan. Why is that significant? Well, when you get your instrument rating and become proficient and used to flying instrument approaches you tend to get into a very different mindset about approaching and landing at an airport than you did when you were VFR. You start to prefer flying approaches rather than doing normal VFR style pattern entries. If I'm coming in and I'm on a course where a straight-in makes sense I'm going to want to fly a vectors to final approach with or without ATC. For you VFR guys that's basically like intercepting a VOR radial that you follow straight to the runway threshold. It takes away a lot of the guesswork especially if you're coming into a field you've never been to before and haven't spotted when you're a ways out yet. When I do this I'm going to of course be on the CTAF, I'll try to make traffic callouts at 10miles, 5 miles, another at 2-3 miles, and short final.

Yeah I'm going to call out a 10 mile final because it's the clearest and most precise way to announce myself. It describes where I am perfectly in a way everyone should understand. If I call out that I'm established on the ILS-4 just past JISNA, the only people who will know where the heck that is are the IFR guys who either know the area very well or have an approach plate out. The VFR pilots and the students? I wouldn't expect them to have a clue. Now I'm going to listen to the other traffic in the pattern, if they're not using my runway I'll adjust as needed. If there's a conflict as I get closer I'll work it out with them. I'm certainly not unwilling to do a 360 or something for spacing if need be but if we're honest, in most cases it is a lot easier for the guy in the pattern to extend his downwind out a bit than the guy on the 2 mile final to change his course. If the roles are reversed, that's what I normally do.

Anyway just trying to maybe shed some light on the mindset of some of the other pilots you might encounter. Some of them probably really are jerks, but I expect a lot of them are also just regular pilots flying in a way that makes the most sense from their perspective, if not yours.
 
Meh, I dunno. When I was flying a Mooney and doing a lot of IFR travelling in it, I still routinely cancelled IFR and joined the pattern if the field was VFR. I did this when there was lots of mid afternoon traffic doing circuits in the pattern. I did it when it was midnight and I was the only one in the sky for 100 miles. Joining and flying the downwind gives me the opportunity to see what NORDO aircraft might be moving on the ground before I try to use the runway and also gives me the opportunity to see whatever else might be going on with the runway (late night drag racing etc) from a much better vantage point than I would have on a 5 mile final.
 
Any plane on final approach (straight-in or otherwise) has right of way over any aircraft that, by cutting in front of them, would cause the aircraft on final to alter its path or abort its landing. Fast planes will be on final approach farther out than slow planes. But all planes on final approach may have right away if close enough in time elapsed to the runway.
 
I am not even instrument rated, and I prefer flying an approach to towered or not towered fields. Especially non towered ones where I have never been and it’s so much easy to just go to the FAF and exactly know where the runway is. And no I don’t fly cirrus.
If the pattern is full, I expect other folks to get out of my way (I kid FAA)
 
Negative gunfighter,the pattern is full.
 
danhagan said:
Entered the downwind in light rain at the home drome. One of the line guys piped up that FAA was on site and to pull up to the FBO as they wanted a ramp check.
Click to expand...

Sorry, must have been checking ATIS when you made that call...
 
I call 20 mile finals, set up for 90 knots on a stabilized approach..... All on CAVU days. Yea, you better give way. I own the final approach corridor once I broadcast it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top