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In many ways, talking about flying consistent traffic patterns as a way to help perfect our landings is a fools errand. Thats because each pattern, approach and landing is different. Tower can bring us in directly to the runway on a long final or a short right base, or ask for an extended downwind. What was a mild left crosswind when you landed this morning can be a honker from the right this afternoon.

Since a good landing comes from a good approach, if you fly the traffic pattern the same way each time, youre most of the way toward perfecting your landings. Try these suggestions for what to do and where to be at each point in the pattern, and youll be consistently gliding over the threshold at the proper speed and altitude. Modify as necessary for conditions, of course, but aim to hit each of these yardsticks in the pattern and youll have eliminated some of the more common problems pilots have with their landings.

Year after year, far and away the largest number of fixed-wing accidents result from attempts to get those airplanes back onto the ground. So says the AOPA Air Safety Institutes 23rd Joseph T. Nall Report, examining general aviation safety during 2011. Landing accidents are more than twice as frequent as any other pilot-related accident category, according to the Report. Thats the bad news. The good news is we can do something about it: improve our performance.Theres no question landing an airplane is a complex task, but one way to ensure we always perform well is consistency: do it the same way each time and youll eventually get good at it. In other words, we need to make our landings routine, not excitement-filled adventures where the outcome is in doubt until the last moment.

Pilots, being independent-minded-perhaps to a fault-and mission-oriented, dont launch on a flight intending to land someplace other than their destination. Overcoming that mindset and accepting the reality that theyre not going to make it on the first try can be a problem for those who drank heavily when the my way or the highway Kool-Aid was served. But we all have to accept reality sometimes and admit conditions wont allow us to complete the mission, at least right now.

As a pilot gains ratings and experience, he or she usually transitions to bigger, faster and more capable aircraft. Progress quickly enough to aircraft with enough bells and whistles in them and its easy to become impressed with all the capabilities at your fingertips. Equipment like airborne weather radar, approved de- or anti-icing and two powerful engines translates into an almost-all-weather airplane. With all that capability eventually comes a desire to use it in the belief the aircraft was designed to reliably detect and avoid anything Mother Nature can throw at it. And then, every now and then, someone discovers no airplane is bulletproof, and no pilot can handle everything, either.

Most pilots are content do drone along in the straight-and-level, rarely banking beyond 30 degrees or pitching up and down beyond 10. Meanwhile, aerobatic pilots enthuse in their ability to fly upside down, vertically and in all combinations. Somewhere in the middle of these two extremes are what the FAA calls performance maneuvers, generally thought of as those required on the commercial airplane pilots practical test.

Not all airframe modifications airframes are officially approved or noted in the logbooks. Shocking as it may sound, many aircraft owners are tinkerers, shade-tree mechanics or aircraft builders. Some have even been known to make unapproved changes and mods without disclosing them to their own mechanics or the FAA.

Unhappily, the accident record bears out this articles main point: Combining STCs and performing untested modifications can have lethal effects.

Its common for a student with whom Im flying for the first time to ask if he/she needs to fly a full turn around the holding pattern, or if its okay to continue inbound on the approach once intercepting the inbound course. Controllers expect you to continue inbound from the hold entry without flying a complete circuit of the holding pattern. Its not a hard-and-fast rule, but courtesy demands telling controllers you will not continue inbound and will instead circle in the hold if for any reason youre not ready to continue inbound immediately from the hold entry.

Of course, some standard operating procedures are always good. The practical test-mandated/real-world recommended method of holding pattern entry is to determine on what heading you will cross the holding fix, then use the 70-degree/180-degree diagram at right to decide whether to make a direct, parallel or teardrop entry into the hold.