Pattern Direction

[PhoenixRising]

I have been doing the training missions, and on land, a right hand pattern was demonstrated, but on the Tarawa a left hand pattern was shown. Is there a reason they are different? Is it against SOP to make a left hand pattern on land?

 

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[Wisky]

left or right hand pattern you would normally find for your airport and runway in your check list.

it can be both.

for a Tarawa type CV in a CASE I landing a left hand pattern is enforced.

[Dragon1-1]

Generally, you want to avoid overflying populated areas when in the pattern. In other words, on land the break is to the side with fewer buildings on it. At sea, it's always to the left, at least with the carriers that we have. This is presumably related to the location of the island, though I don't know which side they broke towards for example on the Ark Royal (WWII British carrier with the island on the port side), if they did so at all. 

[PhoenixRising]

Thanks for the replies.

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[AndyJWest]

4 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Generally, you want to avoid overflying populated areas when in the pattern. In other words, on land the break is to the side with fewer buildings on it. At sea, it's always to the left, at least with the carriers that we have. This is presumably related to the location of the island, though I don't know which side they broke towards for example on the Ark Royal (WWII British carrier with the island on the port side), if they did so at all. 

 

The Ark Royal had its island on the starboard side. 

[Dragon1-1]

The photo I've seen must have been mirrored, it's sometimes the case with WWII ones. I'm pretty sure the IJN carriers had the island on the port side, but they likely used different procedures. I thought I've seen an odd-looking early Allied carrier with island on the other side at some point, but I couldn't find it now.

[AndyJWest]

The only port-side-island carriers I know of were the IJN Hiryū and Akagi. According to Wikipedia (probably not an ideal source) the port-side island on the Akagi was tried as an experiment, "to see if that side was better for flight operations by moving the island away from the ship's exhaust outlets". The majority of Japanese carriers followed the starboard-island convention, so presumably there wasn't any benefit.

 

And yes, it's quite common to see WW2-era photographs mirrored. It was very easy to accidentally flip the negative before taking a print, and if you didn't know what you were looking at, it may not have been obvious. And sometimes photos in newspapers etc may even have been deliberately flipped, just for composition purposes.

 

Edited January 19, 2021 by AndyJWest