For student and VFR private pilots — the folks sharing a gorgeous fall Saturday with everyone else who owns a headset.
There's a particular kind of fall day — cool, clear, not a bump in the air, visibility to the next county — that empties every hangar on the field. It's glorious. It's also when the traffic pattern starts to feel like a merge lane at rush hour, and it's exactly when the right-of-way rules stop being trivia and start being the thing that keeps your paint where it belongs. Those rules live in 14 CFR 91.113, and they're worth knowing cold — not because an examiner will ask (they will), but because a Cessna at your two o'clock won't wait for you to look it up.
The rule underneath all the other rules
Before any of the who-yields-to-whom, there's one sentence that outranks the rest. 91.113(b) says that when weather permits — whether you're VFR or IFR — every pilot must maintain vigilance to see and avoid other aircraft.
Read that again: IFR too. Being on an instrument flight plan doesn't excuse you from looking outside when you're in visual conditions, and ATC calling traffic doesn't do your scanning for you. Separation services help. They are not a force field.
And here's the part pilots forget in the heat of a close pass: having the right-of-way is not a license to hold your course into a collision. The rules decide who should yield. They decide nothing about physics. If the other aircraft isn't giving way, you give way — right-of-way or not.
With that burned in, here's the pecking order.
Converging traffic
Two aircraft angling toward the same point, roughly the same altitude, not head-on. Two cases:
Same category (say, two airplanes): the aircraft to the other's right has the right-of-way. Think of a four-way stop — the one on the right goes first. So if traffic is off your right and converging, they have it and you give way. The practical habit that falls out of this: keep an extra-sharp eye to your right.
Different categories: the rule generally favors the aircraft least able to get out of the way. Memorize the order — each has the right-of-way over everything below it:
- Balloon — it goes where the wind sends it, so everyone yields to it
- Glider — no engine, no second chances
- Aircraft towing or refueling another aircraft
- Airship
- Airplane or rotorcraft — the most maneuverable, so we yield to all of the above
Two things worth noting. First, that towing/refueling aircraft sits above the airship — read 91.113(d) carefully and you'll see the tow/refuel operation outranks it, which surprises people. Second, the encounters you'll actually meet as a VFR pilot are almost always airplane-versus-airplane (right-of-way to the right), or the occasional glider or balloon (they win). And sitting above the whole list: an aircraft in distress has the right-of-way over everyone (91.113(c)). Someone declares an emergency, they get the airspace.
Head-on: everybody turns right
When two aircraft are closing head-on or nearly so, 91.113(e) gives neither one the right-of-way. Instead, both pilots alter course to the right.
This gets drilled into every pilot for a brutally simple reason: it only works if everyone does the same thing. Both break right, and you slide safely past each other. One of you breaks left, and you meet in the middle. When in doubt, right. Always right.
Overtaking: pass on the right, and stay well clear
Catching up on a slower aircraft from behind? Under 91.113(f), the aircraft being overtaken has the right-of-way, and you — the faster one — must alter course to the right to pass well clear. The slower aircraft gets to hold its line; you go around, and you go around on the right.
Notice what the rule doesn't offer: nothing about sneaking under or diving over. You pass to the side, with room. This one shows up constantly in the pattern, where a faster airplane runs up on a slow one — the fix is to break it off and go around, not to squeeze past.
Landing: lowest and on final
The pattern has its own priorities under 91.113(g):
- An aircraft on final approach or landing has the right-of-way over aircraft in flight or on the surface.
- When two or more are approaching to land, the one at the lower altitude has the right-of-way.
But here's the trap. The lower aircraft may not use that rule to cut in front of or overtake an aircraft already on final, and an aircraft on final may not use its priority to force a plane that has already landed off the runway. In plain terms: "I'm lower, so I'll just slide in ahead of you" is not how this works. The rule keeps the flow orderly — it isn't a tool for jumping the line.
Having the right-of-way won't save you
Here's the honest truth your instructor keeps repeating: in a midair, nobody wins the argument about who had the right-of-way. So build the habits that keep you out of one.
- Scan in blocks. Don't sweep your eyes smoothly across the windshield — you'll see nothing. Move your gaze in short segments and pause to actually focus, because your eye only picks up traffic when it's stopped.
- Watch for empty-field myopia. Stare into hazy, featureless sky and your eyes relax to focus a few feet past the glass. Deliberately look at something distant now and then to reset.
- Clear your blind spots. A high wing hides traffic above you in a climb; a low wing hides it below you in a descent. Lift the wing and look before every turn.
- Talk. Position reports at non-towered fields are how everyone builds the picture. Say where you are; listen for where they are.
The takeaway
Right-of-way rules answer one question — who should give way? — and they answer it cleanly: see and avoid always, the least-maneuverable aircraft has priority, head-on means both turn right, overtake to the right and well clear, and on landing the lower aircraft on final leads without cutting anyone off. Learn the order until it's reflex, then hold onto the rule that outranks all of them: if a collision is brewing, you maneuver — priority or not.
This is bread-and-butter oral material and a written-test regular, so it rewards flat-out memorization. A deck of Flashcards makes the converging hierarchy stick, and our digital study guide, Checkride Ready, runs the landing and overtaking scenarios the way an examiner actually phrases them — until the answers come out without you thinking.
For more resources to support your training, visit NorthstarVFR.com.