Hey guys, I have searched the forum trying to find an answer for my question but I can’t seem to find one. Or at least not one that I am happy with.
I was curious when inbound for landing and there’s only Tower control available, no Approach, when Tower instructs you to enter “left/right downwind” whatever runway, should you be immediately turning to the downwind?
There’s been times where I’m coming in for landing and the tower tells me to turn downwind even though imo I seem a little too far from the actual airport, outside of the small blue airspace circle completely a lot of times.
So do I immediately enter downwind or can I come in closer and choose how far/close I want to enter the downwind?
Also do I have to wait now until Tower tells me to turn base or is that at my discretion once I’m in the pattern?
don’t have the right answer for the first part of your question,but
In this case, you can turn base at your discretion. you have to wait for tower to call your base only if the controller sends the instruction “i’ll call your base”
It’s a good question as it brings up a subtlety that is not explicitly addressed by traditional pattern discussions such as in the link further above.
As for your question, I take the command as meaning “clear to enter downwind.”
so, for:
No, you are in control to judge the downwind distance from the runway (unless given specific instructions otherwise), so take the instruction as clearance to enter downwind, not a direction exactly when to enter downwind.
edit: Year before last I had a topic where I made the following diagram after thinking about the issue from your question, plus another couple issues about pattern entry. Though it probably could have used some extra notes:
You can choose when to turn downwind within reason. If you already have a downwind leg in your flight plan chances are ATC may just want you to follow that (if the airspace is sort of empty). You can also turn base whenever within reason. Note that both of these are subject to the conditional that you must follow your sequence. If you’re #2, you cannot turn an early base ahead of #1.
Maybe a better way to order such diagrams in the case of an active control tower is:
1)As you’re approaching a controlled airport you could be inbound at various possible distances and orientations such as the following at the moment the tower gives the pattern entry callout.
2)You then time any turn required to enter the assigned leg (blue below) giving due regard to other aircraft in the traffic flow, and ground and other obstacle avoidance (flip the blue rectangle up for right hand traffic pattern):
