I do it all the time if there’s no-one around who is going to be confused by it. It’s so much easier and smoother.
I suppose the negative is that you have no opportunity to have one last look up the final approach path.
It’s standard practice for the military – they’ve always flown ‘oval’ circuits.
I thought applying flaps in a turn was a big no-no? I’d understand that asymetrical deployment in a turn was much more dangerous thatn asymetrical deployment when flying straight.
A continous trun would mean that flaps would have to be deployed either in full at the end of downwind (before commencing the turn) or during the turn.
dublinpilot wrote:
A continous trun would mean that flaps would have to be deployed either in full at the end of downwind (before commencing the turn) or during the turn.
That would be in a “continuous turn to landing”, no? In a continuous turn to final you can set approach flaps before the turn and full just after.
A straight bit of base leg is a very good observation point. It is easy to judge attitude and so airspeed, judge wind and altitude, and if you are low-wing, to make that last look for traffic on final. I would say that a continous turn is more demanding and not suitable for initial training. Also in an engine-out emergency landing, the base leg is a very important Tool to get the touch-Down point right.
Of course, when IFR circling in minimum weather, the continous turn is standard practice and often the only option.
I actually think the continuous turn is more natural, especially in the forced landing scenario. We can argue about the (de)merits of high/low wing lookout ad-infinitum as each has specific problems.
It will be interesting to see the outcome of the study.
Is assymetric flap deployment common in GA?
A search here for
“assymetric flap”
finds a number of old but very interesting threads and this report (of an SR22 which to be fair was (a) poorly maintained and (b) not preflight checked) is one of the very few cases.
In some types e.g. the Socata TB it would be very difficult to imagine assymetric deployment because the two sides are joined with a thick linkage.
Also there is speed management to take into account. If say Vs2 is 100kt and you end the downwind leg at 110kt then the turn to final is your only opportunity to lose those 10kt, and slow down further for the flare at say 80kt. And it is a good opportunity because the extra G load in the turn is good for losing speed – even if it is a descending turn.
PPL training avoids continuous turns but then PPL training avoids a lot of good things e.g. flying circuits around Shoreham which don’t extend into French airspace 
dublinpilot wrote:
I thought applying flaps in a turn was a big no-no?
That is one of my pet hate topics. One of the most die-hard stupid idiocies propagated by mouth-to-mouth propaganda between amateur flying instructors during the last 100 years. The origins must date back to the time (sometime in the 1920ies or so) when flaps were first introduced into light planes. The first generation of pilots would say: " A good pilot does not need flaps, we never had them during world war I and we always landed safely. And anyway, flaps are dangerous because they can deploy asymetrically or fall off the airplane! " And we still hear about that in 2016…
What is a typical bank angle during turns in the pattern? 20-25 degrees maybe. What is the roll rate generated by asymmetric flap deployment? 100 degrees per second maybe. So what difference does it make if the aircraft was banked 20 degrees before that or not? And the chances that the asymmetry will act into-turn is 50 percent. The other 50 percent your initial bank angle against the asymmetric flaps will actually give you 0.2 seconds more time to retract them before ending inverted…
And regarding the original question: I can not imagine that it makes that much difference safety-wise. And in a high wing aircraft it can mean that the runway is out of sight during the entire turn which will certainly not improve landings…
I remember one asymmetric flap deployment accident report – because it was just before I took my checkride and I discussed it with the examiner (happened to a C15x with 2 on board – aircraft crashed).
As others, when no one is around (well, except the gliders) I pretty much always do a continuous turn to final when glider towing at Andreas. I usually select full flaps abeam of the touchdown point, and where the turn starts depends on the wind. Keeps a nice tight circuit.
Peter wrote:
There are many loss of control accidents on the two turns – downwind to base and base to final.
I just don’t understand how this can be such a big problem.. Are people not learning to fly these days? The first thing I teach my students is that “speed is life”…fly the airplane on the numbers. It’s pretty easy really.
