Holding Pattern Entry Calculator
Direct, parallel or teardrop — enter your heading to the fix and the inbound course, get the AIM-recommended entry with the sector geometry explained.
Entries are recommendations, not regulations — any maneuver that stays in protected airspace is legal. But the three sectors exist because they're the maneuvers that provably stay inside, flown by pilots under load.
Formula
⚠️ For flight planning and education only — verify with current charts, AFM and ATC clearances. Not for primary navigation.
Direct, parallel or teardrop — enter your heading to the fix and the inbound course, get the AIM-recommended entry with the sector geometry explained.
About Holding Pattern Entry Calculator
The holding entry question — direct, parallel or teardrop? — has spawned more cockpit mnemonics, thumb tricks and heated debriefs than any 70-degree line deserves. This calculator answers it deterministically: your heading to the fix, the inbound course and the turn direction in; the AIM-recommended entry out, with the relative angle shown and the first post-fix action spelled out as a sentence you could read to an examiner.
How to use Holding Pattern Entry Calculator
- 1Enter — sensible defaults are pre-filled so you see a worked result immediately.
- 2Read the live results: .
- 3Check the "With your numbers" line to see the formula sectors from the inbound course: direct ≈ 180°+70°, teardrop 70°, parallel 110° — the AIM's 70°/110° lines substituted step by step.
- 4Adjust inputs (or flip the unit toggle) until the scenario matches yours, then copy or share the result.
Why use Holding Pattern Entry Calculator?
- ✓Instant, free and private — every calculation runs in your browser, nothing is uploaded
- ✓Built on the published formula sectors from the inbound course: direct ≈ 180°+70°, teardrop 70°, parallel 110° — the AIM's 70°/110° lines with sources cited on the page
- ✓Entries are recommendations, not regulations — any maneuver that stays in protected airspace is legal. But the three sectors exist because they're the maneuvers that provably stay inside, flown by pilots under load.
- ✓Switch units, tweak any input and watch every result update live
Frequently asked questions
Where do the 70° and 110° sector lines come from?+
From containment geometry: arriving within ~70° of the outbound leg's direction, turning directly to outbound keeps you on the holding side; beyond that, a direct turn would swing you through or beyond protected airspace, so the teardrop (30° offset into the pattern) or parallel (course-line then turn through the inside) maneuvers re-position you safely. The lines are drawn relative to the inbound course: 70° on the holding side, 110° on the other.
What's the thumb trick for finding the entry on a heading indicator?+
Place a thumb on the heading indicator at the 70°-ish point right of the nose (right turns: right thumb at the 8-o'clock... conventions vary) and see where the outbound course falls. Honestly: tricks are personal dialects — what survives checkrides is drawing the fix, the inbound arrow and your arrival arrow once on paper, which this calculator's relative-angle output trains you to visualize.
Do I really have to fly the recommended entry?+
No — AIM entries are recommended procedures, and any entry remaining within protected airspace is acceptable (the FAA has said so explicitly). Practically: fly the recommendation anyway. Protected airspace was sized for these three maneuvers with wind and blunder allowances; improvisation spends margin you can't see, and examiners notice the difference between confident convention and creative geometry.
How does a non-standard (left-turn) hold change the entry?+
Mirror everything: the sectors flip sides with the turns. This tool handles it with the selector — the relative-angle computation reflects automatically. The operational trap isn't the geometry but the readback: 'left turns' arrives buried at the end of a holding clearance, and an entry computed for the wrong direction is wrong by design, not by degrees.
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