Thread: Pattern entry
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Old 02-13-2011 | 05:04 PM
  #17  
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ryan1234
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From: USAF
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Originally Posted by the King
Obviously (as previously mentioned) the textbook entry is your best bet. However, here's something to think about. My former home airport was a pretty busy small, uncontrolled field providing Part 141 training and the usual mix of GA. However, it lies almost directly underneath the localizer for my current home airport. Aircraft are often vectored over the GA airport at 2000 AGL to intercept the glideslope. So flying an overhead entry to the GA airport puts you within 500 feet of fast-moving targets or the Instrument trainee doing ILS approaches. That was closer than I preferred. So I'd do a little digging to make sure you don't wander into some poor schmuck's area since I hate getting TCAS alerts that close to landing.

PS. Since turbine aircraft generally fly 1500 AGL patterns, you do want to keep an eye (or two) out for them, especially since they tend to do 200ish knots. On the plus side, they do tend to make radio calls.
Overhead/initial to 'carrier break' at 600' and you'll be out of everyone's way
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