PilotEdge Forums

After plowing the field at the west end of KLAX's RWY 24R yesterday, I need lots of practice landing my shiny new IXEG 737. Will controllers be annoyed if I log into PE and do a few laps of the pattern?

At LAX? ATC probably won't allow that there or at any other Bravo for that matter. If you can keep your aircraft in the pattern, ATC won't mind you doing it anywhere else.

If I were you, I'd either practice off the network or just fly to/from uncontrolled airports. On PilotEdge, none of the military-only airports are towered. So, you could fly to/from KPMD/KEDW (just about a 10 minute flight) all day long and never have to talk to anybody. KEDW would be a great place to do pattern work due to all of the long runways that point in basically every direction you could ever ask for.

Just request multiple practice approaches. It won't be as tight as a traffic pattern, but they can keep you in to a realistically tight final if you request that. LA Tower is not going to work you in the pattern, though.

Pattern work at a Socal Bravo is likely to be denied as there's little chance it would be approved in real life. However, you could certainly do it at towered airport such as Mojave, San Luis Obispo, Santa Maria, Bullhead (KIFP), or Bakersfield, just from the top of my head.

Of course, large non-towered fields such as Needles or Kingman are great choices, too. In fact, there are 737-200 and CRJ-200 drones doing pattern work at KIGM if memory serves (I created them for HD CSL testing a while ago).

I dont see why you wouldnt be able to find a non busy airport with sufficient runway length to do pattern work in, maybe victorville?

just a week ago there was an Air China 787 doing pattern work for 4 hrs (real world) for pilot training at my home airport of KSAV, a class C airport. you can only imagine the bewilderment on the comms for why there was a 787 in the pattern though XD, not to mention the controller kept calling him Air Canada.

Hey there, RW SoCal pilot checking in! I've seen everything from 737s to A330s to the 787-9 at SBD before and I know for a fact that one of the cargo companies used to take their 747s to BFL to do pattern work. Try those two, they're both good options!