Dear friends and flight students, in today's video
I'll show you the easiest, and fastest way to
determine a holding entry procedure. After watching this video and training with my given examples at the end of the video,
you'll be able to determine the entry procedure in less than 10 seconds, I guarantee you that.
Why do you need to know this in the first place?
During your flight training
you'll practice a lot of these entries
but, even more important if you're facing a simulated screening during an airline assessment
flying the correct holding entry is a minimum requirement, so train this well
and you will make a good impression on your flight instructor or the screening examiner, so let's get started!
Before we get right to it, there's one thing I highly recommend: print out this little compass rose for your training.
It's a great help for you to visualize
finding the right entry procedure. The link to this rose is in the description box below. So now you're in your plane
and you received the following
ATC clearance, "Speedbird 125 heavy, hold north east of JOE VOR on radial 045
at 6000 feet until further advised."
So let's break down this clearance, now the callsign first obviously then, the ATC control that advises you in which
cardinal direction you should hold over the fix.
Northeast, so imagine a holding fix on a map draw a north to south line and east to west line
where the lines cross is you're holding fix, and then determine the
northeast sector.
Now he then mentions the radial you should fly on, in this example 045.
Keep in mind radials are drawn away from the station so draw a line from the fix
heading towards 045.
Now he didn't state which direction to turn within the holding.
This indicates a standard holding, meaning right turn, so draw a curve to the right
starting at the fix continue with a line parallel to the radial which represents the outbound leg
and then complete the holding with another right turn towards the inbound leg.
Okay - Now you've visualize the holding
and the most important thing you need to extract from your visualized holding
in order to quickly determine the entry procedure is
the outbound course. So in our case the outbound course is 045, now it starts to get interesting, but
it's very easy, don't worry.
So let's say you're flying towards the JOE VOR
on heading 120. Now use your little compass rose, or your actual heading indicating your plane,
draw an imaginary line from the middle, towards heading 120.
Then, use your right thumb, because we're requested to perform right turns in the holding, so put your right thumb
at a 90 degree angle
to your current heading so, 210.
Slightly move it upwards so that the bottom part of your thumb
matches the 210, and your thumb covers 20 degrees
above the 210. Draw a line from that point
diagonal through the center to the other side of the compass rose.
Now you can see you've divided the compass rose into three different parts
Now memorize:
Above your thumb is the teardrop sector.
Opposite your thumb is the parallel sector,
and below is the direct entry sector. Once you've established that, you then place your
outbound course into your compass rose, so in our example 045, check which sector it's in, and BAM!!
You've got your holding entry. So in our case, i's a parallel entry.
Boys it doesn't get any simpler than that, trust me. The best thing about this technique is,
is if you're in your plane
you only need to figure out the outbound course, and
if it's a holding with left or right turns to use your thumbs accordingly.
If you're supposed to fly a published holding, presenting in a Jeppesen Chart, the outbound course is even
published in the chart making things even easier.
Also, if you've to fly a non-published hold, and the ATC controller says, hold on radial 230 for example,
that already is your outbound course,
cuz in a holding you fly to the VOR, and
radials always leave the VOR. So just copy the radial course
parallel to the inbound course, and you have you outbound course you need to quickly determine you entry procedure.
So let's fly a holding with left turns, a non-standard holding, with the following clearance.
"CargoLux 284 heavy, hold southwest over DIK VOR, on radial 210 at flight level 140, left turns."
So he more or less already told us the outbound course which is 210,
and we're proceeding on a heading of 270 towards the VOR. So let's quickly use our thumb rule with the compass rose.
We draw our heading 270 line.
Now we use our left thumb because we're doing
left turns in the holding, so 90 degrees to the left of 270 is 180.
Cover up the twenty degrees with your thumb, draw the diagonal line across, and again apply the memorized rule:
Above the thumb is a teardrop.
Opposite is the parallel, and below is a direct entry. Place your outbound course into your rose, and
Bam!! You've got a teardrop entry.
Don't forget the BAM, the BAM is important.
The same applies to NDB holdings,
but be alert during your ATC clearance, the controller may say, " AirJoe 125, hold over BOT NDB
ON QDM 330 until further advised."
A QDM is always flying to the station, use this mnemonic to memorize it.
A QDM is always flying to the station, so you're flying home and flying a QDR,
you're flying from the station.
Concentrate then on figuring out the outbound course again, and then apply your thumb rule.
So now I'll give you a couple of examples to
train this thumb rule I'll fade in ATC clearances,
the holding fix, and your plane's current position with heading,
then pause the video.
Apply what I've taught you, and then press play as soon as you've done the math, and check if you're right.
Keep in mind, if the ATC doesn't mention the direction of the turns, it's a standard holding with right turns.
As you can see, it's fairly simple once you get the hang of it,
and there are more holding clearances to use for training on my website,
just click the link in the description box below.
And in the next video, I'll explain how to actually fly the entry, how to maintain within the holding,
using wind correction angles, and a stopwatch, so make sure to check it out!
Thank you very much for your time
I hope you enjoyed this video and don't forget,
a good pilot is always learning.
See you next week all the best - your Captain Joe!