Holds on autopilot?

"BT" wrote in message
...
People do care..

"Stan Prevost" wrote in message
...

A hold can be almost any time you want unless you are assigned a specific
time, and that time applies to the inbound leg, and is not meant to be
precise. A default hold is a one-minute inbound leg, but you can make it
longer or shorter if you want and nobody cares. Don't go to extremes,
and go do five minutes, but within wide limits (depends on your speed),
it just doesn't really matter. There is no specification anywhere that a
hold must be four or three or two minutes or combinations thereof. The
only guidance is a one-minute inbound leg for the default holding
pattern, and staying within the maximum distance specified on the chart,
if any. Of course, on a checkride, you ought to strive for the specified
time for the inbound leg.


People do care about timeing in the holding pattern, time is set to one
minute on the inbound leg, (1.5 min at higher altitudes) to for "protected
airspace", this protected airspace is to protect you from other traffic or
terrain in a non radar enviroment. You can ask for more from ATC. But if
you do not ask, he is expecting you to fly one minute legs (1.5 min
legs).. and not extend your pattern to 20nm on your own whim.


You will notice that I cautioned against extremes and not exceeding maximum
distances. My intent was to illustrate that the leg time is nothing to
obsess over, within reasonable lengths, and that leg lengths are not limited
to integral minutes, and that EFC has nothing to do with it.

If a holding pattern might be flown at anywhere from, say, 60 knots to
possibly over 200 knots, a one minute leg will range from one to over three
miles, not even considering wind. Since it is really distance that matters,
and over three miles is acceptable (unless Cat E is excluded), that would
correspond to over three minutes for the 60 knot airplane. Variation from
one minute or less to over three minutes would be quite large in term of
pilot technique, and would border on extreme, IMO.

Nonwithstanding all that, an instrument pilot should, IMO, be proficient in
being able to adjust leg timing as required (not just mixing up integral
minute legs) to meet a crossing time for a timed approach. It is just that
when prioritizing workload during a normal hold, precise leg timing is not
at top of the list, especially for slower aircraft.

(Can a helicopter hover for a hold in VMC, or must it fly the hold pattern
with specified legs?)