AOPA’s Air Safety Institute (ASI) is working with the University of North Dakota to study continuous turning approaches as an alternative to the traditional rectangular landing pattern. The study comes as the NTSB retained in-flight loss of control (LOC-I) on its list of “Most Wanted” safety improvements for the third consecutive year. UND and AOPA decided to collaborate on the study of the potential alternative pattern after working with senior NTSB officials at a recent loss-of-control panel.

The organizations are exploring whether simple changes in procedure or training for landing patterns could enhance safety and reduce LOC-I, AOPA said. “The hypothesis to be studied is that in contrast with a rectangular pattern, a continuous turn from downwind to final might provide for increased stability, reduced pilot workload and a constant bank angle throughout the maneuver, helping pilots better manage angle-of-attack variance,” the association said. AOPA and UND also believe the continuous turning approach could reduce potential for overshooting the runway during the base-to-final turn.

“It’s too early to say for sure if the continuous turn to final method will be a safer, more stabilized way to land,” said George Perry, senior v-p of the AOPA ASI. “The U.S. military, commercial airlines and many airline ab initio programs already use the continuous approach turn as the standard to support safe landing pattern operations. We should determine which is safer for general aviation, and this study will help us find the answer.”

“Although the study is in its early phases, and it’s far too soon to draw any definitive conclusions, the new procedure has already been studied and practiced by a select group of UND instructor pilots ,and initial data collection has been going quite well,” added Lewis Archer from UND’s aviation department.

The organizations hope to make initial results available early next year.