Collision hazards & wake turbulence

The two things that hurt you in the pattern are the airplane you didn't see and the air the last airplane left behind.

right of way, and why it isn't protection

§91.113: an aircraft on final approach or landing has the right of way over aircraft in flight or on the surface, and of two approaching to land, the lower one has it — but may not use that to cut in front of or overtake an aircraft on final.

Broader order, most to least protected: aircraft in distress, balloons, gliders, airships, towing or refueling, powered aircraft last.

But the same rule says that regardless of who has the right of way, a pilot who sees a danger of collision must give way. Right of way has never prevented a mid-air. If the geometry is closing, turn.

seeing traffic

In a high-wing the wing covers exactly the airspace you're about to turn into: lift it and look before every turn — crosswind, base, final. In a low-wing, the blind area is below and behind, where an airplane joining the 45 lives.

Scan in short fixed segments with pauses; the eye resolves nothing while moving. An airplane on a constant relative bearing doesn't move in your windscreen — motionless traffic is the warning, not the all-clear.

NORDO aircraft are legal at non-towered fields, so a quiet frequency says nothing about an empty pattern.

wake turbulence

Wingtip vortices exist whenever the wing is making lift — rotation to touchdown, never with weight on the wheels — and are strongest behind an aircraft that is heavy, slow, and clean.

They sink 300 to 500 feet per minute below the generating flight path and drift outward — so stay above and upwind of its path:

• Landing behind a larger aircraft — note where their main gear touched down, stay at or above their glidepath, touch down beyond their touchdown point.
• Departing behind one — rotate before their rotation point, climb above their departure path, then turn upwind.

The worst wind is a light quartering tailwind: too weak to clear the vortices, angled to hold the upwind vortex on the runway and push the other toward a parallel.

Standard separation behind a heavy is a few minutes, and you can always ask for more. Waiting is free.

The uncomfortable arithmetic. In the pattern you're low, slow, configured, and busy — the conditions under which an upset is least recoverable. Every defense here is preventive, because there is no recovery from a wake encounter on short final.