Remaining in the Pattern VS Departing

Hello Fellow Community members! I have created this thread to discuss a commonly misunderstood function with aircraft communication.

I absolutely love controlling an airspace, and instructing aircraft through pattern work, however, there is a common mistake I see with aircraft taking off, and communicating with the other aircraft, or even ATC.

As you see in the screenshot above, therw are two options for requesting takeoff with ATC, or announcing takeoff with an unicom frequency. Whats the difference some new, and sometimes experienced pilots may ask. Lets discuss

First we will deal with “Remaining in the Pattern.” When this is called out, it is meaning that the aircraft plans on staying in the airspace, and returning to that airport, following an Upwind/Departure-Crosswind-Downwind-Base-Final, traffic Patten, like shown below. NOT FOLLOWING YOUR FLIGHT PLAN!

image

Now lets discuss Departure. When you plan on going to another airpot, and leaving the current airspace, you announce Deparing XXXX. Am example would be, if you plan on Leaving KLAX, and going to another airport. Even if you come back to that airport after the leg, you still announce Departing.

Hope this clears up some confusion, and any questions/additions/comments, please feel free to add below

Thank you! Good day! -Shaydox

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Very helpful, it’s very annoying & confusing when a pilot says remaining in the pattern instead of departing xxx, and they end up departing straight out.

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@KyleBoas @WardellStephenCurry Ta-da!

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As COO of the ATCEG. This is one of my BIGGEST pet peeves that people do.

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If they don’t have an aviation background (so a large portion of the new user base), they will not know what a pattern is. Also, it’s much faster to click “remaining in the pattern”. Nice post. 👌

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Awesome formatted guide! I have to agree the fact that it’s annoying to see this in my opinion. Unfortunately, most people who do this aren’t members in this forum. Unless every pilots in Infinite Flight are required to have an account in here, this annoying habit wouldn’t stop.

Some members have attempted to make a similar guide, but that doesn’t give a significant impact unfortunately. I do hope they can realize about this and stop their annoying habit

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Every time I see an aircraft say Remain Pattern, I give them sequencing, and when they depart, I say, check forums, thank you, good day. And swipe them off my frequency

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Yeah, that’s what we can do for now. But it would be annoying to see if there are 5 pilots doing the same mistake when the airfield is busy. But we can’t do anything unfortunately

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Be nice if we could have a reporting system that would send them a notification, giving them direct links to tutorial threads

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Unfortunately, this isn’t a ghostable mistake I’m afraid despite how annoying it is. But I guess a guide regarding this issue can be made by one of the FDS members and add it to the app as a Help Pages feature.

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That would be perfect. It brings them right to the forum.

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Absolutely, I would never ghost for a silly mistake like this once I am able to take tests for IFATC, just a link to the forums would be greatly recommended

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You do see this on Expert server. Less common but when it does happen it’s horrific, they depart, ask for transition then frequency change,

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Good job addressing this common mistake. Unfortunately, it just will always be one of - if not the biggest - mistake that Infinite Flight Pilots make due to most people not being on the community and not realising that there are turtorials regarding this subject. When I control on expert it still happens where pilots announce ‘remaining in the pattern’, yet actually they are departing north.

I think people who tend to use this are quite new to the simulator and are experimenting with buttons etc. but there are, of course, still grade 3s, 4s, and quite possibly 5s doing it.

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Thank you for taking the time for the very helpful information!!

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Appreciate all the support. Glad you guys agree, and can use it as a learning tool to the newer pilots!

Great info ! If the spawn screen was used to highlight this issue, even those not members of the forum would have an opportunity to learn.

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