There’s a million instructional resources on the internet that explain everything there is to know about holding patterns. In fact, there might be too much information for a pilot to practically focus on, while flying the pattern in real-world flying.
This page is designed to give you practical mental scaffolding that ties all that information together.
The key to flying good holding patterns is to have a full mental picture of how the pattern will look like well ahead of time, ideally at a handful of minutes before entering the hold.
The “thin end” and the “fat end”
The most fundamental aspect of holds in presence of wind is that they will not look like a symmetric oval, but rather have a “thin end” and a “fat end”:
- the thin end is the one where you turn into the wind,
- so your ground speed will be slower than airspeed, and
- your turn radius will be much smaller;
- the fat end is the one in which you’ll turn away from the wind,
- so your ground speed with be higher than airspeed, and
- your turn radius will be larger.
It’s important to realize that every time there’s wind in a holding pattern, there will be a thin end and a fat end.
A practical rule of thumb frequently taught is to measure your wind correction angle (WCA) inbound and use triple that WCA when flying outbound.
It’s a useful rule of thumb, but it’s safe to use only if you have a good mental picture of where you are with respect to the unprotected side of the hold, and how much space you’ll need to complete your turn inbound.
Example
Imagine you are flying the missed approach hold for the ILS Rwy 31 approach at KFFC, with a wind from 315 at 35 knots
In preparation to fly this hold:
- you determine that the thin end will be the turn inbound (the one from 227 from 047), and
- the fat end will be the one outbound (east of the fix);
- you’ll be blown away toward southeast both within the thin and the fat end
- you will compensate by either arriving at the thin end inside the oval (e.g., using a 237 ground track instead of 227) or using a less-than-standard turn inbound. If the wind is very strong, you might in fact have portions of that turn with no bank at all, as needed to intercept the course inbound.
It is important that you have an accurate thin/fat end mental picture of the hold in mind early, let’s say 2 NM before reaching the hold.
Additional practical considerations:
Airspeed
In a checkride, your DPE might be strict on hold airspeed.
Know ahead of time what’s the recommended hold speed for your type, e.g., 90 kts. You’ll be plenty busy in the hold, so you don’t want to struggle with airspeed and trim changes in the hold.
Reduce your airspeed from cruise to hold speed and trim well ahead of the hold, e.g., 2 NM before entry, so that when you enter there’s no change in power settings or trim.
Timing device
While your plane must be equipped with a clock, and the avionics and your transponder might typically offer a stopwatch/timer feature, it’s frequently not a good idea to use these functions.
If you need multiple touch screens taps to get to the stopwatch, that’s bad – you’ll be very busy when flying a hold: you should avoid all extra sources of work load.
Rather, carry a wristwatch, a stopwatch or a digital kitchen timer that has physical buttons and that you can start, stop and reset in a fraction of a second, with no thinking and no UI navigation.
Recommended practice at home
Holds are one of the instrument flying skills for which practice on a home simulator can be the most beneficial, especially to reinforce your instrument scan and your decision making:
Sample simulator setup:
- set wind from 315 @ 35 kts at 3000 ft
- set stratus or cumulus clouds from 1000 to 6000+ ft
- on your ForeFlight (or equivalent EFB), load the plates for the VOR Rwy 5 procedure at N82
- in the simulated GNS 530 unit, load VOR5 procedure making sure you answer “yes” at the “fly course reversal” dialog box
To fly the hold:
- have your stopwatch or timing device ready at hand
- fly the timed 1-minute as published, “green needle”
- think in advance where are the thin and fat ends of the oval
- think ahead of time when to start and stop the stopwatch
- verbalize your outbound timing adjustment
Once you master holds in the simulated conditions just described, switch wind direction, e.g., from 215 @ 40 kts, and repeat.
Continue learning about holding patterns: Holding patterns with the Garmin GNS530.
Avionics – at home as in the plane
The most beneficial practice at home is achieved when your simulated avionics represent faithfully the avionics you have in your plane, specifically:
- you want the instrument scan you train at home to reflect the instrument scan you’ll use in the plane;
- you want your avionics programming flows to reflect as much as possible the real plane, so that the muscle memory you develop at home transfers to your plane;
We can help you recreate at home a flight simulator setup that approximates as closely as possibly the avionics you have in your plane.
