Other Patterns
If an aircraft intending to land must be delayed, the air traffic control (ATC) may decide to place it in a holding pattern until the airport is prepared to permit the landing. Commercial aircraft on hold will generally fly slow, racetrack-shaped patterns which differ considerably from the airfield traffic pattern that will be commenced once the approval has been given to land. Although an aircraft in a holding pattern may similarly circle the airport, ATC may designate a distant location in which to circle.
Read more about this topic: Airfield Traffic Pattern
Famous quotes containing the word patterns:
“Phenomenal nature shadows him wherever he goes. Clouds in the staring sky transmit to one another, by means of slow signs, incredibly detailed information regarding him. His inmost thoughts are discussed at nightfall, in manual alphabet, by darkly gesticulating trees. Pebbles or stains or sunflecks form patterns representing in some awful way messages which he must intercept. Everything is a cipher and of everything he is the theme.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“I’ve begun to appreciate the generational patterns that ripple out from our lives like stones dropped in water, pulsing outward even after we are gone. Although we have but one childhood, we relive it first through our children’s and then our grandchildren’s eyes.”
—Anne Cassidy (20th century)