CFI-to-CFI Newsletter - Volume 14 Issue 1 - 11

ASI mESSAGE
CONFESSION
mY JOURNEY TO mORE COmmUNAL FLYING
BY RICHARD G. MCSPADDEN, JR.
SEVERAL YEARS BACK, I HAD A MORE INDIVIDUALISTIC
APPROACH TO MY FLYING. I arrived at VFR patterns in whatever
fashion suited my personal situation. I'd flow into existing traffic,
but also didn't hesitate to fly a straight-in or an unorthodox entry
if I thought I could work it in. My approach worked out OK.
I don't ever remember conflicts, but I am likely unaware of
stress I caused other pilots or events where other pilots modified
their patterns to accommodate my custom arrival. I've come
to appreciate the value in a more consistent, predictable, and
communal approach to my flying. It's a work in progress.
The fundamental problem with my previous approach is that it didn't
embrace general aviation's milieu. We're part of a varied collection of
hundreds of thousands of individual pilots flying thousands of different
airplane types into some 5,000 airports nationally. We conduct more
than 20 million operations a year safely by adhering to procedures and
protocols that optimize our community. The procedures or guidelines
may sub-optimize my personal situation on occasion, but holistically,
these guides optimize our community and our overall safety, which in
turn comes back to benefit me personally. My fundamental shift is to
embrace the notion that I'm an individual pilot flying as part of a thriving,
friendly, passionate, and concerned GA community. By adhering to basic
procedures my actions benefit all of us.
I have the great fortune of flying into several sizeable GA events every
year in different types of aircraft. Time and again, impressive volumes of
aircraft flown by wide-ranging pilot experience levels flow safely, without
professional traffic control. Kitfoxes to Pilatuses, flowing into a pattern
and landing on a single runway-and we do it working in unison. Having
that same mindset every time we arrive at any airfield-particularly
nontowered fields-will help us reduce the number of midair collisions
we have in GA, some six every year, 80 percent of which are in or near the
VFR traffic pattern.
A couple of tragic midairs last year, each that involved nonstandard
pattern entry from an airplane in the collision, brought VFR traffic
patterns into focus. Our regulations and guidelines in general aviation
are broad. It doesn't take much to adhere to them, and when we remember
we're acting as participants in a broader community, they seem even
less onerous. FAR 91.126 mandates left turns in patterns at nontowered
airports in Class G airspace, unless the airport signals otherwise. FAR
91.113 gives right-of-way to the lowest of two aircraft when both are
approaching the airport for landing, while an aircraft on final or landing
has right-of-way over others in flight or operating on the ground. As
if reading pilots' minds, the regulation goes on to prohibit a pilot from
taking advantage of these rules to cut another aircraft off or pass them in
the pattern.
CFI-to-CFI Newsletter - Volume 14 Issue 1

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