wind correction in a hold

A

azaviator08

New Member
When correcting for wind in a hold do you teach your student to double whatever the correction inbound to the outbound. So say you are correcting 5 degrees inbound, you will be correcting 10 degrees outbound. This is what I was always taught and I can't find any reference to this and I can't think of an explanation as to why we do this.
 
The reason is simple enough.


holdswind.png


Tripling the outbound seems to work ok if you can keep standard rate. I've heard of doubling too though.

FAA Instrument Flying Handbook Ch. 10
 
The way I teach holds, is that I try to correlate it to the ground refs they did back in private training... In essence, the IFR Hold is the IFR equivalent to a ground reference maneuver.

Lets say when inbound on a hold you've got a left correction of 10 degrees (we'll assume right hand hold). We know that the "crosswind leg" or, more specifically, the Fix End of the hold is going to give us a tailwind during the turn. Now, in a Ground Reference maneuver what do we do during the downwind to crosswind turn? Steeper bank angle. Why? Because the tailwind is going to try to push us out farther from the reference line... But do we want to vary our bank angle during the hold? No, we should try to hold standard rate. So because we aren't varying our bank angle, what is happening to the airplane? It is being pushed out. So we just got pushed out, lets say we use the same correction angle inbound as we did outbound, 10 degrees, this time to the right. What is going to happen when we start turning to the right, into the headwind? The headwind is going to hold us back, and we'll have to reintercept our course after rolling out from the outbound end turn (all while drawing on the board). So we can see then that our outbound turn is going to be of smaller radius than our inbound turn, right? So, we have to find a way to make our airplane roll out of the outbound turn right on our inbound course, so we have to move our outbound turn over a little bit (on white board, moves outbound turn over next to proper intercept), now we just connect the dots, and thats why we correct on the outbound leg 3x more than on the inbound leg.

Using the same technique I then talk about a right correction on inbound leg and turning into a headwind on the fix end. I find it works really well, and teaches holding patterns to a correlative level of knowledge right off the bat.
 
gotWXdagain said:
The way I teach holds, is that I try to correlate it to the ground refs they did back in private training... In essence, the IFR Hold is the IFR equivalent to a ground reference maneuver.

Lets say when inbound on a hold you've got a left correction of 10 degrees (we'll assume right hand hold). We know that the "crosswind leg" or, more specifically, the Fix End of the hold is going to give us a tailwind during the turn. Now, in a Ground Reference maneuver what do we do during the downwind to crosswind turn? Steeper bank angle. Why? Because the tailwind is going to try to push us out farther from the reference line... But do we want to vary our bank angle during the hold? No, we should try to hold standard rate. So because we aren't varying our bank angle, what is happening to the airplane? It is being pushed out. So we just got pushed out, lets say we use the same correction angle inbound as we did outbound, 10 degrees, this time to the right. What is going to happen when we start turning to the right, into the headwind? The headwind is going to hold us back, and we'll have to reintercept our course after rolling out from the outbound end turn (all while drawing on the board). So we can see then that our outbound turn is going to be of smaller radius than our inbound turn, right? So, we have to find a way to make our airplane roll out of the outbound turn right on our inbound course, so we have to move our outbound turn over a little bit (on white board, moves outbound turn over next to proper intercept), now we just connect the dots, and thats why we correct on the outbound leg 3x more than on the inbound leg.

Using the same technique I then talk about a right correction on inbound leg and turning into a headwind on the fix end. I find it works really well, and teaches holding patterns to a correlative level of knowledge right off the bat.
Click to expand...

Excelent explanation.
 
With 30 degrees on the inbound? Lost? So exclude the holds where you're flying 30 degrees of correction on the inbound.

In "real life" I do my best just to work it out on the inbound turn so it all matches up. Triple, double, who knows... as long as it works out.
 
JLF said:
With 30 degrees on the inbound? Lost? So exclude the holds where you're flying 30 degrees of correction on the inbound.

In "real life" I do my best just to work it out on the inbound turn so it all matches up. Triple, double, who knows... as long as it works out.
Click to expand...

Realistically yes you just fix it every time around the hold.

I start with doubling the inbound and then fine tune it from there.

I was just mentioning if you follow the "triple the inbound" rule religiously, which some people do, you could get yourself in trouble when you have a high inbound correction.
 
It also depends on the aircraft you are flying. In slower aircraft like the Piper Archer, tripling the figure will not work at all.

If you have a Garmin 430, or any GPS that shows ground track for that matter, here is a nice trick:

On Nav page 1 you have DTK and TRK. If on your inbound leg your course is say 090 holding west of a VOR (GPS, VOR, NDB, regardless) but your TRK is showing 085 while holding heading 090 as you fly inbound then it is very simple to see by doubling this (5 deg) you need to fly 260 on the outbound. Also, you can compare your TAS to GS and quickly determine where the wind is coming from (in this case somewhere between 090 and 270 on the south side of the station).

This is also a very easy application when trying to figure out what heading to use to bracket your inbound approach course. Take the required course, find the difference in the TRK, and turn left or right that many degrees on the HSI or DG to hold the exact inbound course.
 
I teach my guys the "3 to 1" rule.... which is whatever you are correcting for on the inbound leg, multiply that by 3 for the outbound leg correction. (ex. 5 degree correction inbound = 15 degree correction outbound).

i teach them to correct 3 times the inbound leg because after the inbound leg you have 2 turns and the outbound leg. you need to account for wind drift during all three legs, and during the turns you are unable to because you should be turning at constant rate. so... you multiply by 3 and do it all on the outbound leg.
 
A co-worker and I had this same argument the other day, and we could only meet in the middle and agree upon the "do what works" method. I was taught rule of three and that works for me, he was taught rule of 2 and that works well for him. We both make adjustments as is necessary though and advise our students to do the same.
 
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