O.K.  guys,  I don't want to pick a fight with anybody but I've been flying for 50 years now and it seems to me that as each year has gone by the "normal pattern' has gotten bigger and bigger.  I started out flying in the Air Force and was taught to pull the power abeam the landing spot and land.  If you had to add power you had screwed up the approach and if you extended the pattern you had screwed up your entry.  The idea as I remember was that at any time after pulling power your engine failed you could still make it to the runway.  This included jet fighters.   Fly the plane! 

I started flying light aircraft in the 50s and noticed the patterns growing, and growing, and growing.  Now everybody seems to think they are flying a 747, need to keep the power in and have a 3 mile final.  I'm happy to see there  are still some pilots who realize when the pattern has gotten out of hand and break out and re-enter even though it takes additional time.  Maybe if we all practiced flying tighter patterns as a matter of course Oshkosh wouldn't be so trying.  Oshkosh is not the easiest place to fly but without those controllers and their remarkable ability it just couldn't happen!

I do think some of the high performance planes should be in the 'warbird' pattern and hopefully this will officially change to a 'high performance' pattern based on approach speeds.

FWIW This has bugged me for years,  thanks for letting me vent!  Fly safer!



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John McMahon
Lancair Super ES, S/N 170, N9637M (Reserved)