Airfield traffic pattern
standard path followed by aircraft when taking off or landing, while maintaining visual contact with the airfield
An airfield traffic pattern is a standard path followed by aircraft when taking off or landing while maintaining visual contact with the airfield.
At an airport, the pattern (or circuit) is a standard path for coordinating air traffic. It differs from "straight-in approaches" and "direct climb-outs" in that an aircraft using a traffic pattern remains close to the airport. Patterns are usually employed at small general aviation (GA) airfields and military airbases. A number of large controlled airports avoid the system unless there is GA activity as well as commercial flights. However, some kind of a pattern may be used at airports in some cases such as when an aircraft is required to go around, but this kind of pattern at controlled airports may be very different in form, shape, and purpose to the standard traffic pattern as used at GA airports.
The use of a pattern at airfields is for aviation safety. By using a consistent flight pattern, pilots will know from where to expect other air traffic and be able to see and avoid it. Pilots flying under visual flight rules (VFR) may not be separated by air traffic control, so this consistent predictable pattern is a vital way to keep things orderly. At tower-controlled airports, air traffic control (ATC) may provide traffic advisories for VFR flights on a work-load permitting basis.
“Airfield traffic pattern” enters the record as standard path followed by aircraft when taking off or landing, while maintaining visual contact with the airfield. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Airfield, traffic and pattern can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Airfield traffic pattern” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.