Category: Airfields

I thought I’d share some experience of visiting new airfields. Occasionally visitors irritate home-based pilots as they don’t follow the circuit, and as a visitor myself I am sometimes uncertain how to go about the circuit join. Here’s how to get it right……

Starting with preparation:

• Review the flight guide for circuit information – height, position, size / shape, type of join, and whether QFE or QNH is used. Skydemon (other apps are available) can also help here.
• Make sure you understand the standard overhead join. It cannot always be used, and often it is modified. In some cases, the ‘geometry’ is followed but with modified heights due to CAS, in other cases, the heights are used but the geometry varies for noise abatement reasons.
• Call for PPR and get a briefing – even if PPR is not required
• If the wind is variable, plan for the possibility of a runway change and a different join
• Decide what features will lead you to the airfield if it is difficult to spot – GoogleEarth is a great resource for this
• If uncertain, ask advice from an instructor or someone familiar with the destination

And in flight:

• A GPS, such as Skydemon may help you find the field if it is difficult to spot.
• Call up in good time; monitoring the frequency will give situational awareness – how many aircraft are in the circuit, which circuit is used etc.
• A standard overhead join (if allowed) gives you more time to spot the field and, get oriented and integrate with other traffic.
• Look out carefully for other traffic, and listen out, especially for aircraft using a student call sign
• Integrate considerately into the circuit – traffic already in the circuit has right of way over traffic joining. Calling ‘joining left base’ or ‘long final’ means you are beyond the circuit and joining in a non-standard way – you don’t have right of way!
• Don’t expect everyone to be in exactly the right place – they may be visitors, or students.

A few examples illustrate some of these considerations:

• Fenland EGCL uses a standard overhead join, which makes it easier to locate the field (it can otherwise be hard to spot without GPS), but you may use other joins if traffic permits.
• Peterborough Conington EGSF uses standard overhead join heights, but for noise-abatement, the overhead join is offset from the landing threshold and the crosswind leg follows an old runway alignment and is not perpendicular to the runway in use.
• Coventry EGBE lies under the Birmingham CTA, so the circuit is flown on QNH, an overhead join is not possible and you may wish to join downwind, or on a base leg (giving way to existing traffic).
• Larger (towered) airfields like Norwich EGSH will instruct you how to join. They generally give the most expeditious route – to downwind, base or straight in, depending on the direction from which you arrive.