Get Holding Entries Right Every Time | How a CFI Visualizes Holding Entries | Holding Pattern Entry 

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Can’t more agree on that. Should have done my training in the US not in Germany😅

​@MrThundercat1989 do you think your training is subpar? Im a german PPL and always thinking about the differences

fr . being a pilot is too expensive to fail lessons, thanks for videos like these that teach better than some CFI’s

Thanks, Sam. This might be one of the most thoughtful comments and pieces of feedback I've gotten. Glad to be able to help out!

I get it, but I don’t get it. Need much more practice.

@@cesarmo469 maybe this can help. Always draw to the fix. Then draw left or right depending on direction. The line told to hold on will be the line parallel to the initial line drawn to the fix

Yup, I had to watch the first part of the video for that part to sink in.

Thanks Andrew. Many more IFR videos coming your way with that subscription!

Wow high praise for these wonky little videos, thanks so much!

Glad to have your eye on the vids as always!

I appreciate that!

I agree. This is the hard part, not actually making the entry and flying the hold, especially on the check ride when the examiner may give you a hold that is very close to the official FAA breakpoint between one entry type and another. Knowing the actual heading breakpoints and how to select the “FAA correct” entry is key and this video unfortunately omitted that most difficult part.

@@LTVoyager I have come up with the following formula to figure out the type of HOLD for myself. It may sound crazy but if you practice it becomes easy both in flight as well as the written test. Stop the video at 2:29 for the visual and do the following formula. Left +, Right - (Left Turn add, Right Turn subtract in the formula below). In this example obviously we are doing a right hand turn Inbound - 70= Tear Drop 060 - 70 = 350 (The area between 350 -060) Inbound + 110 = Parallel 060 + 110 = 170 (The area between 060 - 170) The rest will be Direct 170 - 350 Hope this helped.

@@abrahamnemani3907 where do you get the numbers you’re using to add/ subtract so the (70) and the (110)?

@@aaronrivera5134 A formula that I came up with. You need to subtract 70 for Right pattern and add for Left pattern from the inbound leg to get the Tear Drop area. Then add 110 to get the Parallel area. The rest would give you the Direct area. Try to draw this and hopefully it makes sense.

Those NDB holds had obstacle-free buffer areas that were absolutely massive because of nav error tolerances. Proceedure designers hated them because the placement and altitude were so limited due to terrain (At least in semi-mountainous areas.)

You're welcome, Xuan!

Glad you enjoyed it

Not wrong legally you can enter any way you want as long as you remain on the protected side of the fix. This is just technique.

It's easy once you decide if you can make a direct entry or not. So do that first. Once you decide that you can't make a direct entry, then you only have two choices, teardrop or parallel. So first, you can easily see if you can make a direct entry by drawing a long line perpendicular to the radial (90 degrees) that runs directly through the fix and across the body of the hold and cuts perpendicular through the outbound leg. Basically you draw a line that cuts the turn off and separates it from the rest of the hold. Now, on one side of that line you made is all the direct entries. On the other side is the parallels or teardrops. You can easily see how it would be easy to make a direct entry from anywhere on one side of that line. 180 degrees are direct entries, the other 180 degrees are either teardrops or parallels. So once you know it's not direct, you have to decide either teardrop or parallel. So now, just look at what would happen if you flew to the fix and kept going straight. If you kept going straight, your flight path would either take you into the body of the hold or take you outside the body of the hold. If it takes you outside, it's a parallel entry. If going straight would take you inside the body of the hold, it's a teardrop entry. It's that simple. Find out which half is direct first, then if you can't do direct, just see where you are after crossing the fix to decide if it's teardrop or parallel. Inside teardrop, outside parallel. If your path is directly opposite of the inbound leg, then it's always parallel.

@@eltomas3634 Hi Tomas, Thanks for the insights!

This is for the teardrop.

Yes. The frequency and identifier of the fix will be published on the appropriate chart. Tune it, listen to the identifier (Morse code), or look at the identifier letters on the corresponding display, and once you are sure you have the right fix then you home towards the fix.

4:53

Hi Pierre-Alexandre. This is a good question that comes up a lot. It turns out there is no "protected or unprotected" side of the hold. There is a maneuvering side which offers more protection, but there is protection on either side, hence why the parallel entry offers minimal maneuvering where appropriate and also keeps us protected from obstacles. The protection area is based on speed, altitude, and other factors, but you can see how they are calculated in the TERPS figure 17-6-1. It's complicated, but the takeaway is that there is protection on either side.

Holds are done while on IFR flight plans which are governed by Air Traffic Control. You are always being monitored by them. Say there is weather over the field and so ATC puts everyone into a holding pattern.... They will separate aircraft by altitude, fix, or distance on the radial. So you may be holding on the VOR at 6000, another at 7000, another at 8000 while still others are holding on the same radial but maybe a 25 miles DME fix so that along a single radial you could multiple aircraft holding at different intervals.

Yeah I never really got the hand method. I hope this helps! Best of luck in IFR training