The traffic pattern and runways

Why a pilot who never transmits needs the pattern

You will almost never key a radio as a remote pilot. You still need to know what the people on that radio are doing, for a plain reason: at a small airport without a tower, you are standing under their pattern. Manned aircraft there fly a fixed rectangle at a fixed height, in a fixed direction, and they say aloud where they are in it. If you can turn a short radio call into a place in the sky, you know where to look for a real aircraft within a few seconds, long before you would find it by scanning alone.

The FAA’s wording is that you are not required to talk to manned aircraft near a non-towered airport, but safety depends on being familiar with traffic patterns, radio procedures, and phraseology. The rule underneath it is stricter: you must not interfere with operations in a traffic pattern, and the AC says to avoid the pattern and the published approach corridors.

FAA-G-8082-22, Ch. 7 · 14 CFR § 107.43 · AC 107-2A ¶ 5.10.1.1, 5.10.1.2

Runway numbers come from a compass

A runway’s number is its magnetic heading with the last digit dropped. Take a runway pointing 130 degrees magnetic: drop the zero and you get 13. Pointing 270 gives runway 27, and 090 gives runway 9, painted 09. The number is a heading you can steer, so you can point at it.

The other end of the same strip points the opposite way, 180 degrees different. Add 180 to 130 and you get 310, which is runway 31. That is why one runway carries two numbers: 13 and 31 are one piece of pavement, named for whichever way you are facing when you use it. The two numbers always differ by 18, which is a quick check that you read a pair correctly.

Magnetic is not true. Charts are drawn to true north and runway numbers follow magnetic north, so a runway’s painted number and its angle on the sectional differ by the local magnetic variation. Runway 13 is about 130 degrees, to the nearest ten, and that is all the precision you need for this lesson.

AIM 2-3-3 · FAA-G-8082-22, Ch. 11

Landing into the wind, and which end is active

Aircraft take off and land into the wind. A headwind over the wings means less ground speed for the same airspeed, so the aircraft needs less runway and touches down more slowly. With a single runway there are only two choices, and the pilot takes the end whose heading is closest to the wind direction.

Wind direction is where the wind comes from. With a wind from 300 degrees at Cooperstown, an aircraft heading 310 is nearly head-on to it, so runway 31 is the active runway. Let the wind swing around to come from 130 and the right choice flips to runway 13, because now 130 is the heading that points into it. The change happens when the wind is blowing straight across the runway, about 040 or 220 here, which is where neither end is better. The wind decides the runway; the runway decides everything below, because the whole pattern is drawn relative to it.

FAA-H-8083-25C, Ch. 14 · AIM 4-3-3

The five legs

Think of the pattern as a rectangle laid along the active runway, with a leg on each side and one along the runway itself. There are five legs, flown in order.

1. Upwind runs straight ahead along the runway heading, after takeoff.
2. Crosswind is the first turn, ninety degrees from the runway heading, at the far end of the runway.
3. Downwind is the long side parallel to the runway, flown the opposite way from the landing direction.
4. Base is the turn back toward the runway, ninety degrees from downwind, so it is square to the runway.
5. Final is the last turn onto the extended centerline, pointing the same way as upwind, descending to land.

Standard patterns use left turns, so the pattern sits on the left side of the runway as seen by the landing pilot. A right-hand pattern is the exception, marked on the sectional with RP and the runway number. For runway 13, left traffic gives headings of 130 upwind, 040 crosswind, 310 downwind, 220 base, and 130 final. Each turn is 90 degrees to the left, which is 90 less on the compass. Right traffic does it the mirror way and puts everything on the other side.

AIM 4-3-3 · FAA-G-8082-22, Ch. 11

What “left downwind for 13” puts on the ground

This is the question the test asks, so go through it slowly. The call is “midfield left downwind, runway 13”.

1. Runway 13 points 130 degrees, which is south-east. That is the direction the aircraft will land.
2. Left traffic means the pattern is on the left of that landing direction. Stand at the approach end of runway 13, face south-east down the runway, and the pattern is on your left hand.
3. Left of south-east is north-east. The downwind leg is therefore on the north-east side of the runway.
4. On that leg the aircraft flies 310 degrees, back north-west, with the runway on its own left. “Midfield” means level with the middle of the runway.
5. The test offers only east, south, and west, and north-east is closest to east. The aircraft is east of the runway.

Note the trap. The aircraft is heading north-west, and a hasty reader sees “north” or “west.” The question asks where the aircraft is relative to the runway, not where it is going. It is beside the runway, on the side the left turns create.

FAA-G-8082-22, Ch. 7 · UAG sample question 18 (FAA-CT-8080-2H, Fig. 26)

Pattern altitude, and where 400 feet fits

The pattern is flown at about 1,000 feet above the field elevation, though it varies by airport, and the Chart Supplement or the chart can say otherwise. Your ceiling is 400 feet AGL. On paper, they never meet.

In practice they do, at the ends. An aircraft on downwind is near 1,000 feet, but one on base and final is descending, and one on upwind is climbing. A three-degree approach path is only 400 feet up about 7,600 feet, a bit more than a mile, from the runway. Both of you occupy the same sky close to the runway ends and along the extended centerline. So 400 feet keeps you below the level part of the pattern, but it does not make the ends safe. The AC’s own guidance is to avoid the pattern and approach corridors, and, if you must work there, to fly so that no manned pilot has to change course.

FAA-G-8082-22, Ch. 11 · AC 107-2A ¶ 5.10.1.2

Anatomy of the radio call

A pilot at a non-towered field announces on the CTAF, in a set order. The format is the airport name, the callsign, the position, the runway, and the airport name again: “Cooperstown traffic, Skyhawk 4PA, left downwind, runway 13, Cooperstown.” Naming the airport first and last lets anyone on a shared frequency confirm the call is for their airport.

For you, the useful words are in the middle. The position tells you which leg. The runway tells you which way the pattern is facing. Together they pin the aircraft to a spot, as the previous section did. Typical calls come at the 10-mile inbound point, entering the pattern, on base, on final, and when clear of the runway, with a matching departure call before takeoff.

FAA-G-8082-22, Ch. 7 · AIM 4-1-9 · AC 90-66C

The frequency is the CTAF, which is where you listen. It may be a UNICOM (usually 122.8), a MULTICOM (122.9 when nothing else is listed), a flight service frequency, or the tower’s own. The chart marks it with a small encircled C. Check the chart rather than assuming.

FAA-G-8082-22, Ch. 7 and Ch. 11

Using the pattern below

Three experiments. Each one takes less than a minute.

Swing the wind. Drag the dial around the full circle. Watch the active runway number change as the wind crosses 040 and 220, and notice that every leg heading moves with it. The pattern is not a fixed drawing; it follows the runway, and the runway follows the wind.

Tap the legs. Tap each of the five legs in turn. The panel below the picture tells you where the aircraft is relative to the field and prints the call it would make. Read the call aloud and see whether you can say where it is before you look at the readout.

Recreate sample question 18. Drag the wind to come from about 130 degrees so runway 13 is active, choose left traffic, and tap the downwind leg. The readout should say east, in the north-east. The picture is the answer. Then switch to right traffic and watch the same call move the aircraft to the other side of the runway: west of the field, in the south-west. That is the mirror image, and it is the difference one word in the radio call makes.

How the test asks it

FAA-G-8082-22 sample questions 5 and 18

Where to go next

You can now turn a radio call into a place and a wind into a runway. What to do when you hear that aircraft is coming your way is a separate skill, and it is covered in right-of-way and see-and-avoid. The radio and airport sections in the Operations chapter cover frequencies, airport data sources, and the markings you meet on the ground.