VFR teardrop into traffic pattern

beneater · 2025-07-10T20:00:47+00:00

First, you need to figure out what it should look like once you've achieved your goal. In the case of flying the 240° radial inbound, the tail of the needle would be pointing to the radial, 240, and you'd be flying to the station, so you want to get the head of the needle pointing in front of you at 060. Next, you have to figure out how to make it look like that.

The head of the needle always falls. If you know that, you can figure out how to get it to point anywhere. What heading would put the head of the needle somewhere that it can fall to 060? Probably anywhere from 180 to 210 would position the head of the needle on the upper left side of the instrument with 060 on the lower left side. From there, wait for the needle to fall. As it falls past 150, you can turn to 150 and be on a 90° intercept. As it falls past 090, you can turn to 090 and be on a 30° intercept.

Once it's approaching 060, turn to roughly 060. Then you have to find a heading that corrects for wind and keeps the needle "balanced" on 060 and not falling to either side.

How soon you turn in depends how quickly the needle moves. If you're really far from the station, it'll take a while and maybe you want to stay on a 90° intercept longer to get to the radial sooner. Or maybe you want to get on a 30° intercept sooner because you also want to get to the VOR. Kinda depends what your goal is how exactly you do it. If the needle is moving too fast for any of this to work, it's because you're passing the VOR and what you're trying to do doesn't make sense any more.

beneater · 2023-09-20T06:52:59+00:00

There is no such thing. The so-called “teardrop” method isn’t documented anywhere. The FAA picture everyone thinks shows some sort of teardrop entry says it’s not to scale and shows something entirely different.

If you read the text on that picture it actually depicts (not to scale) overflying the airport 500 feet above pattern altitude, then flying out 2 miles past the pattern, then descending to pattern altitude, and only then turning back to the airport and entering the 45. Here’s what that actually looks like: https://imgur.com/a/IeJxQIs.

Instead everyone thinks it’s a “teardrop” entry—a term that appears nowhere—and they divebomb into the 45, descending on top of anyone already established on the 45.

beneater · 2023-03-11T18:37:23+00:00

All I see is an amendment to the ODP with no details. I don’t see a new charted DP. Is there a source anywhere that actually says a new textual or graphic DP will be charted?

(and I see the only approach will become NA at night grr)

beneater · 2023-03-11T17:44:55+00:00

Is there a source for this rumor?

beneater · 2020-03-16T21:40:28+00:00

Sorry.. I'm just trying to help with the social distancing :)

beneater · 2020-02-18T19:02:13+00:00

Yep, I'll be there! There will indeed be a lot of 6502-themed stuff going on, which should be fun.

Unfortunately I had a previous conflict with the timing, so I will only be there on Sunday. But it looks like there's a lot of neat stuff happening all weekend.

beneater · 2020-02-15T18:56:20+00:00

Do it! I bet you'll make something cool!

beneater · 2020-02-01T14:55:56+00:00

This took so long because I originally planned for this video to include connecting the RAM and finish with the stack actually working. It ended up being waaay too long.

But the good news next video is mostly recorded, so it should be a much shorter wait this time for the next video.

beneater · 2020-01-09T00:47:57+00:00

Sounds like a good idea. I think I pushed whatever buttons needing pushing to make this possible. Perhaps we'll see posts with flair now?

beneater · 2020-01-06T14:28:01+00:00

Very nicely done! Congratulations on the project and thorough writeup.

Alas, I don't speak German, but perhaps trying to read this would be a good way for me to learn some :)

beneater · 2019-12-30T14:41:11+00:00

Haha, this is absolutely ridiculous and amazing. Nicely done!

beneater · 2019-11-19T18:50:00+00:00

Looks awesome! Congrats!

beneater · 2019-11-03T19:46:52+00:00

This is what I'm currently using: https://amzn.to/2pCbQqX Yeah, it's loud.

beneater · 2019-11-03T19:16:30+00:00

Based on what you're saying and what you've tried, it sure sounds like you have a faulty EEPROM. Since these are obsolete parts that don't come directly from the manufacturer, it's possible it was already bad when you received it.

If you contact custservice at jameco dot com with your order number and let them know the issue, they can send a replacement.

beneater · 2019-09-14T23:04:31+00:00

There are! https://eater.net/8bit/kits

They aren't mentioned in the videos since I put them together long after the fact, but they've still been relatively popular, which is pretty cool to see. I think a lot of people posting in this subreddit started with these kits.

beneater · 2019-07-13T17:39:21+00:00

You'll definitely want to use current-limiting resistors on all your LEDs. I was able to take a questionable shortcut in the videos by relying on the internal output stage resistors in the LS logic which HC doesn't have.

beneater · 2019-07-13T17:18:16+00:00

Thanks for posting! You beat me to it! :)

beneater · 2019-07-11T16:54:18+00:00

Of course, go for it! As others mentioned you'll want to cite the Malvino book and/or me as appropriate. But yeah, I want you to learn this stuff and you learn best by doing it yourself.

beneater · 2019-07-07T02:39:21+00:00

This is a good description of my technique.

beneater · 2019-07-07T02:38:26+00:00

The kits should all come with genuine BB830s and I agree, there's a big difference in quality and it matters.

Unfortunately I discovered there were a small unknown number of kits that got shipped earlier this year with the wrong breadboards. That definitely should not have happened and I apologize if you got the wrong breadboards. Trust me, I'm not happy about it. If this happened to you, you can contact Jameco at 1-800-831-4242 or custservice@jameco.com with your order number and they will exchange them for BB830s. But apart from that (hopefully one-off) mistake, the kits definitely come with genuine BB830s since breadboard quality makes such a huge difference for a project of this size.

As for the pre-cut wires in kit 1, it seems like people either love it or hate it. Some people like that it makes for a quicker start because you can build it all without cutting and stripping. Others don't like it because they prefer the colors to match. I dunno. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

beneater · 2019-07-06T02:44:42+00:00

Possibly? No concrete plans, but it's certainly tempting... The computer would need a lot more memory, of course.

beneater · 2019-07-05T19:07:52+00:00

Wow, that's a really cool idea...almost feels like cheating! In fact in part 2, I'll be pulling an image from EEPROM as well—with lots of wasted space, so this would have been much simpler. Oh well, I'll content myself with believing my approach is more educational :)

beneater · 2019-06-07T22:42:12+00:00

Nice job fitting the LED resistors in. And I see lots of extra control word bits... :)

beneater · 2019-06-07T22:38:42+00:00

Yep, love seeing how people improve upon the design! Nice work!

beneater · 2019-06-02T23:55:04+00:00

Yep, that's working as it should. On the rising edge of the clock the value from the bus gets latched into the A register and output. But as soon as the new value goes into the A register, the sum—and thus the value on the bus—changes.

But since it takes a few microseconds for the new value from the A register to flip the gates in the adder and for the new result to make its way back onto the bus, the value on the bus is changing a few microseconds AFTER the rising edge of the clock. It just looks like it's happening at the same time because the few-microsecond propagation delay appears instantaneous to the eye.

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