What Left Base means on Landing

make left base means turn left to enter the base leg of the traffic pattern to land

What he said.

LOL! Mypilot, you are going to give me a heart attack "what he said"

check your mail box, i've mailed you a cheeseburger for cracking out that gem...lol!!!

With all due respect to FEM, you might not enter a left base leg with a left turn under the conditions described. "Make left base" is a highly unusual ATC instruction also. Normally the instruction will be "enter left downwind for RW 33". About the only time a left base entry would be given is if you were appraoching the airport from the west rather than from the east.

Under the conditions given, to enter a left base, the pilot would need to first turn southwest, fly past the airport, then make a circling right turn to enter the left base. The alternative, with ATC permission, would be to overfly the airport and enter a left downwind.

To answer the original question, a traffic pattern can be either a left pattern or right pattern. In the US, left patterns are customary but there are many cases where right patterns are dictated by nearby runways, nearby airports, noise control factors, and terrain. The pattern is a rectangle starting at the approach end of the runway. The course along the runway is the upwind leg. The short leg turning 90 degrees either right or left of the runway heading is the crosswind leg. The long line of the rectangle with a course reciprocal to the runway heading is the downwind leg. The right or left 90 degree turn from downwind is the base leg. The continuation of the runway heading course is the final leg.

If, in real life, I was on a 290 heading and received instructions to make left base for RW 33, I'd ask the tower controller for clarification of how they wanted me to fly that approach since it makes little sense.

After posting the above, I went back and reread the question and noticed I had misinterpreted the heading being flown as 290 instead of 029 degrees. Now, the left base instruction makes sense but it would still be made with a right turn to base rather than a left. As you arrived at the point where you wanted to enter the base leg, you would turn right to 060 degrees and then make a left turn to final when you reached the appropriate point.

wow, that was deep donwood. good job.... 👏

Essentially no matter where you join the pattern from hearing "Join left...." you know it is a left hand pattern. All turns once in the traffic pattern will be to the left. When joining a Westerly RW from the South I get vectored onto left base before being vectored onto an intercepting path for the ILS if visual I get asked to join left base. No point for ATC to put you downwind as this would add time to the flight.
I do not think it matters which way you turn to join the base leg the point is that the turn to final will be to the left in this case.

Ok thanks a lot everyone.

I have another quick rl question about landing since we are on the subject.
Do airlines today use VFR rules where the pilot does most of the work or do most of them just use ILS or VOR's to guide them

It depends a bit on the size of the airliner. Most airlines (maybe all) require all flights be under an IFR flight plan regardless of the weather. Pilots usually handfly the departure to whatever minimum the airline requires and then have the autopilot do the flying. They will also mostly handfly the approach but many of the larger aircraft are equipped and approved for fully automatic landings when necessary.

VOR's still receive heavy use from general aviation and from smaller airliners, however, most of the majors flying jets have gone to mostly GPS navigation. In the US, the FAA has been trying to move to GPS and stop maintaining the VOR system for cost savings but general aviation and smaller airlines have fought that since most of their aircraft are not equipped with GPS and many GA pilots are not trained in its use.

Ok thanks a lot Don Wood.

sorry, I didn't mean left turn how you were thinking I did Don W.

Was in a hurry so i didn't really think about what I was saying. Had one too many Left's in the sentence.