Visual Holding Pattern
Screenshots
Description
The Visual Holding Pattern provides a complete visual reference to help you determine the proper holding pattern entry technique based on your aircraft's heading and the holding pattern's inbound leg course. With a single finger rotation a pilot can easily orientate the holding pattern around a holding fix based on the inbound leg's desired bearing, radial, or course. The entire circular image can be rotated to match the aircraft's heading to allow the pilot to visualize the aircraft's approach to the holding pattern. The aircraft's heading can either be set manually or automatically based on the magnetic heading of the iDevice being used. This app is designed for optimal viewing and use on an iPad or iPhone 5 screen size or larger. This app requires iOS 8.0 or greater.
What's New
This update allows a +/- 5 degree heading tolerance in determining the recommended pattern entry based on your heading. Many thanks to Murray Sissons for requesting this update. We take user feedback very seriously and will always listen to and consider update requests so please keep them coming.
Details
- Developer
- Arthur Varrassi
- Main Category
- Navigation
- Version
- 1.4.0
- Version Release
- 2020-07-27
- Initial Release
- 2015-07-25
- Size
- 15 MB
- Age Rating
- 4+
- Price
- USD 0.99
- Languages
- EN
- Bundle ID
- com.PilotTechOnline.VisualHoldingPattern
- Version Rating
- ★ 3.82 (11)
- First Seen
- 2026-05-30
Metadata updated 2026-06-16
Rank History
Free · Max 90 days · Top 5 categories shown (Y-axis: rank, lower is better)
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Free Rankings
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Paid Rankings
Competitive Benchmark — Navigation Top 10
What it takes to beat this app — comparison with the category's top apps. The orange row is the current app.
| # | App | Price | Rating | Ratings | Langs | Last Update |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | MilGPS | USD 12.99 | ★ 4.83 | 5,497 | 1 | 2026-05-22 |
| 2 | Solocator - GPS Field Camera | USD 0.99 | ★ 4.26 | 410 | 1 | 2026-04-04 |
| 3 | Land Nav Assistant | USD 2.99 | ★ 4.48 | 73 | 1 | 2019-04-08 |
| 4 | Sun Seeker - Sunlight Tracker | USD 11.99 | ★ 4.84 | 12,735 | 5 | 2026-06-13 |
| 5 | Blitzer.de PRO | USD 0.49 | ★ 4.50 | 20 | 11 | 2026-02-04 |
| 6 | Sporty's E6B Flight Computer | USD 9.99 | ★ 4.90 | 5,263 | 1 | 2024-02-17 |
| 7 | Tactical NAV | USD 8.99 | ★ 4.37 | 320 | 1 | 2026-05-31 |
| 8 | Speedometer 55 Pro. GPS kit. | USD 3.99 | ★ 4.71 | 2,685 | 11 | 2026-06-08 |
| 9 | Ship Finder | USD 4.99 | ★ 4.24 | 3,865 | 1 | 2018-11-13 |
| 10 | Theodolite | USD 8.99 | ★ 4.71 | 903 | 1 | 2025-06-30 |
| 77 | Visual Holding Pattern | USD 0.99 | ★ 3.82 | 11 | 1 | 2020-07-27 |
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User Reviews
This app is nicely done, allows an intuitive presentation of how the aircraft will arrive at the holding fix. It’s based on the USA AIM and IFR Training Texts. Unfortunately, in my basic man’s opinion(just a humble one), the FAA’s method is counter intuitive. However this app makes it easier to see how the aircraft arrives at the fix allowing a more intuitive decision on type of entry. Pictorializing the arriving aircraft’s orientation to the hold is this app’s goal and it attains this goal.
Excellent product, very intuitive and on the mark! Even the compass function is very accurate and definitely helpful in flight. Highly recommended 👍
The App works great except the text size for the holding pattern info (degrees) is too large so it doesn’t display the entire radial/course. This is on an iPhone 12 w/o any text enlargement.
doesn’t not work correctly
This is a great app. It’s very clean, intuitive, & simple to use. As a private pilot for over 20 years with an instrument rating, I’ve always carried a plastic “whiz wheel” holding pattern calculator very similar to this electronic version. These are hardly ever needed because the holding patterns required is usually quite obvious. However, these come in handy for confirmation when flying near the boundary between two zones. Since my iPad is always open when I’m flying using ForeFlight, it’s nice to now have this app on my iPad too. It’s unfortunate that one reviewer gave this app a 1 star & commented that this does not work in the US....that is clearly wrong. Such a low rating is undeserved, disrespectful to the author who obviously worked hard on it & coming from someone who obviously doesn’t know what they are talking about.
Very easy to operate ... very clear information.
I’m not sure what country this holding pattern is valid for, but it’s completely incorrect for the US. Please fix the pattern for the US. Thank you.
Reviews are collected only for apps with detected changes (new entries or sharp risers).