Flying in Florida

OK, so I don't have much experience yet, but I have certainly noticed some differences between flying in Florida and the UK. The following is just my inexperienced view of things and I am including it here in the hope it may be useful either to someone intending on going over there to do a course or hours building, or someone who has flown over there and now wishes to fly in the UK.

General Terms

The main differences you commonly come accross are:

USA	UK
pattern/traffic pattern	circuit
flight following	radar information service
point	decimal

Also, the altimeter subscale setting in the US is inches of mercury, so the setting 29.92 would be used where 1013mb would be used in the UK. Different controllers will pronounce the value differently, too, so the value 29.92, for instance, might be spoken as ``twenty nine point nine two'', ``two nine point nine two'', ``twenty nine ninety two'' or one of numerous other ways so you need to listen carefully.

Circuit Joining

In the US, the standard way of joining a traffic pattern is the 45° join. This involves joining the downwind leg at the mid-point at an angle of 45°. This has the advantage of allowing anyone to be able to look for joining traffic as they turn from crosswind to downwind, however it means that joining aircraft on the dead side must manoeuvre around the airfield area until they are in a position to head towards downwind at 45°.

In the UK, the standard join is the overhead join. This involved overflying the airfield at the top of the ATZ (usually 2000ft aal) and descending to circuit height on the dead side, crossing the upwind end of the runway and then turning onto downwind. This also has its pros and cons. It is easy to approach the airfield from any direction, but traffic taking off may not be able to see joining traffic and joining traffic may not be able to maintain visible contact with traffic taking off. This method is also not always available, for example if the ATZ height is reduced due to restricted class airspace above (as often the case around London, such as at Denham).

Uncontrolled Airfields

Uncontrolled airfields in the US utilise a method of R/T known as the UNICOM. There is no ground station and all traffic is expected to make broadcasts announcing intent or position. This also means that information about runway in use and surface wind will have to be gleaned from the wind-sock and the calls of other traffic. A radio check will require someone else in the pattern who is able to respond. If you get no reply, it may be difficult to know whether you have a faulty radio or there is just nobody around to hear!