Lately I’ve been monitoring my local airport’s frequency and I’ve heard some interesting things. For one, I’ve often wondered if you can approach straight without entering a pattern?
I heard a pilot announce his position and ask which runway was active. After getting no response he announced he was approaching straight in. A little while later another pilot announced she was on the downwind leg. He then changed his approach to he would be entering left downwind and let her know he was giving her some room.
This guy sounded kind of happy once he had someone else on frequency. I just found it interesting he changed the approach after determining there was traffic.
I’ve never read the straight approaches were allowable, but straight visual approaches are in Garmins.
Most of the time I can’t understand half the stuff said over the radio. Most talk like an auctioneer and clip the mic before they finish speaking. If I were flying I’d just take it as someone is around at least.
Straight in with no tower may be legal, but it’s not always a good idea - especially if there’s not a good fence around the field. Better practice might be to do a low approach down the length of the runway to check the windsock and look for wildlife (I live in deer country) on the runway. Depending on the wind, follow that pass with either a circle back to land the opposite way, or continue with a full circuit with crosswind, downwind, base, then back to final.
When I first started flying MSFS I thought I saw a deer on the runway of a country airport. It turned out to be one of the many ill placed taxiway signes.
Here is a video of real life at my non-towered airport, it was a very light day with only two in the pattern. There is a very busy flight school with 10 aircraft, I have been in the pattern with up 8 aircraft, and in addition 1 coming straight in on ILS, and 1 coming straight in at the same time opposite runway RNAV. In both those cases they were training and break off prior ro pattern. However I was next to turn base and noticed the ILS plane jsut plain old decided to land. Yes I have the right away, but that means nothing if I am dead. so it was up to me to extend my downwind 2 miles to let him in. Annoying , hell yes, but I am still alive and was happy to let him in. Coming straight in to a non towered airport with planes active in the pattern is extremely dangerous and does kill quite often. Happened when I was at embry-riddle in 1994. Happened again this year in California
We often shoot practice approaches straight-in to LPV or ILS minima (often 200 or 250’ AGL). Getting down that far pretty much means you’re well into the pattern, so may as well take the “option” (touch and go, stop and go, full stop, or low/missed approach). That said, traffic in the pattern is always a prime consideration and I would never consider myself priority. If everybody can communicate clearly and agree that a straight-in is going to work with flow and not be too disruptive, then we do that (I say “we” because practicing this in VFR/VMC requires a safety pilot).
Other ways around this are to break off at circling minima and enter an upwind (or whatever part of the pattern is applicable), or to go missed at that point, which is usually clear of the pattern. Otherwise, if it’s crazy busy and feels like we’re not going to safely get in, we’ll just take it somewhere else or do some turns in hold or delay vectors until the pattern clears up.
Note that those options aren’t available at every airport and we still need to maintain instrument proficiency/currency. Looking up how busy the pattern is and doing some preflight planning (including alternates) should be a crucial step (with caveats that I’m not going to get into). Sometimes we luck out, sometimes not so much and we dance. Some airports have a lot of transient aircraft beating up the pattern and if I’m one of those and I hear an IFR inbound (practice or not) and two more VFR aircraft just entering, that may be a cue to head back home or go to another airport.
In the end we do our best to share, give way, and be courteous. We’re all up there trying to safely do a thing.
Straight-In Landings.
The FAA encourages pilots to use the standard traffic pattern when arriving or departing a non-towered airport or a part-time-towered airport when the control tower is not operating, particularly when other traffic is observed or when operating from an unfamiliar airport. However, there are occasions where a pilot can choose to execute a straight-in approach for landing when not intending to enter the traffic pattern, such as a visual approach executed as part of the termination of an instrument approach. Pilots should clearly communicate on the CTAF and coordinate maneuvering for and execution of the landing with other traffic so as not to disrupt the flow of other aircraft. Therefore, pilots operating in the traffic pattern should be alert at all times to aircraft executing straight-in landings, particularly when flying a base leg prior to turning final.
My personal rule - and for most pilot - is overflying the field as much as possible (time, weather…) to overlook the field, check conditions (runway, taxiway, apron…), listening to the air to air frequency and build the best overall situation awareness, then enter the traffic pattern by the downwind on the 45 in US, by the dead side in UK, at the far start of downwind in France… It could be long pilot’s lounge discussions Finally, I think that the magic for safety is the quality of information shared on the radio frequency. By the way, I remember the “Any traffic please advise” is also a hot topic "Any Traffic Please Advise" and Other UNICOM Moronisms
The magic Catalina, KAVX, California
The “less magic”, Cosne-sur-Loire (LFGH) in the center of France (please notice the mess on the french unicom frequency)
The real world is not FAA-like and don’t forget other way of flying like bush pilots
You can fly a straight in approach but it is not a good idea in my opinion. Flying the pattern not only sets you up for a good stabilized approach it is a safety aid. There are crop dusters flying at certain times of the year at the airport where I learned to fly. I hated flying when they were operating because they would make straight in approaches, land with the wind instead against it, etc. They would not use their radio to make announcements most of the time so you would be on downwind and look down and here is a crop dusting plane landing that you had no idea was around. They were dangerous and if I were the airport manager I would have chewed some a%% over it. Flying straight in approaches, unless directed by ATC to do so, is lazy and dangerous in my opinion.
LOL, so i really really really do not like my tail number lol. I bought the plane from Ohio University hence the number. I am in the two year long process of changing it lol. zero zero zero zero zero uniform! lol
I even had a control tower once tell me, wow sir that is a mouthful of a tail number. They get mad if I say one thousand uniform, and sometimes I can get away with triple zero uniform
We’ve heard endless stories and seen endless videos from US-based pilots. I wonder if there are people to share similar experiences from European airfields (nevermind that GA may not be as much popular at the other side of the Atlantic). By now I feel I’ve heard/read/seen so much, I could give it a try to nearly any US airport but not the local one next door
Haha, a LOT of airports are pretty roughed up irl. The blackshark AI doesn’t really account for that (or correct size of runway markings, or placement of runway lights, etc). If you want immersion, having some surface spalling or weeds growing through the cracks would get you there pretty quickly.
From my private only leisure pilot experience in Europe + US, there’re differences for sure but cowboys, outlaws and unrespectable “pilots” live on both side of the Atlantic: pilots not talking to radio, go straight when the pattern is not empty, go-first-who-care… etc… But most of the time and for the GA small plane/leisure experience for 20 years and 1000 hours that I have, it’s respectful and safe
I have dozen of video in France on auto-information (so to speak ) on my channel but in french as unicom in France on non-towered airport are 99% of the time french only
I don’t know if you think of the runway or the overall environment but the runway has been reconstructed and reopened in May 2019 so look at the video time Here’s my approach in 2021 with air to air communication recorded
I’ve done some airport development work and I had to give up on trying to make it look overly real. I noticed in some situations it caused rendering issues from a distance. It might be one reason they keep it so clean looking.
I just found it interesting he changed the approach after determining there was traffic.
Finally, I think that the magic for safety is the quality of information shared on the radio frequency. By the way, I remember the “Any traffic please advise” is also a hot topic 
Here’s my approach in 2021 with air to air communication recorded