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One of the things you learn and practice when you're learning to fly, and practice ad nauseum, is how to fly a traffic pattern. Since traffic is naturally more concentrated near an airport, the airport traffic pattern is a way to organize airplanes taking off and landing to minimize the likelihood of collision.
But it's seemed to me, so far, that the traffic pattern is something that you just learn from someone. It's like learning to use a hammer correctly; there isn't a course to take in school on it, someone just shows you one day. Well, I'm a book learning kind of guy, so I wanted to find the real definition of what a traffic pattern is. The formal definition.
Well, it turns out that it's not in the repository for a great deal of information for pilots, the Aeronautical Information Manual.
The definition of a traffic pattern is instead in FAA Avisory Circular AC 90-66A. Aviation Advisory Circulars are official documents put out by the FAA which are guides on how to do things according to them. Here's a full index of ACs on the FAA's web site. A Circular mentioned a lot in EAA (amateur aircraft) publications is AC 43.13, which is the list of how to do stuff on an aircraft; how to use different types of fasteners and so on.
So now I have a real copy of the definiton of a traffic pattern. I did learn a couple of things from that document.
I have just about 45 hours of flying thus far. I'm finishing with my preparation for the FAA's private pilot check ride. I'm scheduled for that on July 5 in the morning. I passed the written test last Saturday, so it's all over but the testing. We'll be flying down to Tri-Cities for the test. I'll need to leave home early in the morning--it'll be a long day.