AOPA Pilot Magazine - September 2020 - 96

P&E

ON INSTRUMENTS

WINDS CAN complicate your tracking. Crab to compensate for crosswinds (above) or else a one minute turn from the outbound path

could leave you undershooting or overshooting your intercept to the holding course. Finding the optimal crab angle may take a few
turns around the pattern once established on the inbound leg, which should be one minute in duration. To prevent being blown too
close-or far away-from the inbound leg, it might make sense to double (or even triple) the wind correction angle you used to track
the inbound leg's course. Headwind on the inbound course? Shorten your time on the outbound leg. Tailwind on the inbound course?
Extend your time flying on the outbound leg so that you reach the magic, one-minute (or one and a half minutes, if flying above 14,000
feet) inbound leg timing.

straight-in IFR final approach course, it's
best to look for any ADS-B targets and listen to CTAF frequencies for the locations
of any self-announcing traffic. Remember,
ATC's primary job is to separate aircraft
on IFR flight plans, not work VFR traffic
around instrument arrivals or departures.
Holding can be used as a substitute for
a procedure turn outside an instrument
approach's final approach fix. This is called
a hold in lieu of procedure turn, abbreviated HILPT. A quick look at the approach
plate's holding pattern symbology will tell
you if you need to fly a HILPT. If the holding pattern's racetrack is in bold, you must
fly the holding pattern to reverse course-
unless ATC clears you for a straight-in
final, the "No PT" (no procedure turn)
advisory is depicted, or ATC is providing
radar vectors to the final approach course.
A holding pattern is part of a missed
approach procedure. When you practice
missed approaches, do they always end
with a missed approach hold? They should.
You'll wish you practiced them more often
96 | AOPA PILOT September 2020

because in real-world IMC, flying a fullblown miss is a high-workload job. Once
you've decided to fly the miss, you'll need
to power up, enter a climb, announce your
missed approach to ATC, retract gear and
flaps, retrim, fly to the missed approach
point, enter the holding pattern, report
your time and altitude to ATC, reduce
power, retrim, and track the pattern's
inbound leg. Good thing that many missed
approaches begin with straight-ahead
climbs to holding fixes that are dead ahead.
Want more situations where a hold
might be necessary? An airplane ahead
of you has a gear-up landing, closing the

airport. At a nontowered airport, a pilot
forgets to call ATC to close the flight plan.
The ILS or VOR serving the approach goes
out. The weather goes below minimums.
In each case you may well need to hold
and then fly elsewhere. Think some more,
and you can envision other reasons. You
may even face situations where you'd ask
ATC for a hold. Let's say you need time to
troubleshoot a system problem, study an
upcoming procedure, or check on weather
at alternate airports.
The expect further clearance (EFC)
term in a holding clearance is important
because it makes the holding fix your

Holding speed limits:
Below 6,000 msl.......................................................... 200 KIAS
6,001 msl to 14,000 ft msl....................................... 230 KIAS
14,001 ft msl and higher............................................ 265 KIAS
Holding pattern timing, inbound leg:
At or below 14,000 ft msl........................................ one minute
Above 14,000 ft msl................................................... one minute, 30 seconds

AOPA Pilot Magazine - September 2020

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