Lazy pattern is forward thinking.

[Frank Giger]

Since I fly strictly non-towered airspace, I keep my head on a swivel. My aircraft is small and slow, and because it's open cockpit, I'm not always intelligible over the wind noise on the radio.

Indeed, I moved my camera from a head mount to a fixed one as it comes out as "spazcam" from looking around.

[lnuss]

Impossible to have a midair after you've landed. Your mileage may vary.

That's technically true, but I've twice witnessed an airplane landing on top of another, so caution and alertness is still needed at least until clearing the runway and, in some ways, all the way to the tiedown.

[Bob Dingley]

I'm against the continuous turn for a few reasons, the main one being that you eliminate one last look to see conflicting traffic, which only takes 5 seconds. That 5 seconds only adds one tenth to two tenths of a mile wider pattern for 95% of the planes out there.

I have had a few of these. One happened when I was a solo student in a J-3 Cub in left traffic for the grass strip that was home base. It was near the Brunswick NAS and there were more than a dozen P2 Neptune Patrol bombers in the local area. All below 1500'. I had my eyes on the rw end. Went wings level on base and cleared the engine and suddenly there was a P2 at 3 oclock below me doing a straight in to the strip. At 200KTS. By the time I could do any thing, he was gone. A miss at less than 1/4 mile.
Few years latter in Texas, no tower. I turned left base for the active. A Citation on a 10 mile final blasted past about 1/4 mile off the nose. Glad I was wings level or I would have missed him.

[Bob Dingley]

Like many others, I was initially trained in a Pt141 school. Then trained the Navy way at Saufley Field. "Rectangular" patterns, racetrack patterns. Gosh, what do you know, ordinary people trained that way can do either safely.

Just asking, Mike, Is Saufley the one that has a water tower on downwind leg with the tire tracks on its top?
Bob

[Mike M]

That's technically true, but I've twice witnessed an airplane landing on top of another, so caution and alertness is still needed at least until clearing the runway and, in some ways, all the way to the tiedown.

got me! good point.

Just asking, Mike, Is Saufley the one that has a water tower on downwind leg with the tire tracks on its top?
Bob

I have no knowledge of my tire tracks on a water tower anywhere Bob

[1600vw]

I like practicing engine outs at my grass strip using the tight pattern. Like the video on pattern work, I get the thrush hold to the runway at about a 45 degree angle over my left shoulder, reduce throttle to an idle, lower the nose, bank and make my turn sliding the airplane onto the center line of the runway to land all at an idle. I find this a lot of fun.

[lnuss]

A number of years ago, when I had access to it, I used to love to keep a 150hp C-150 in real tight at Jeffco. With its rapid climb and 40º flaps (plus a slip, if needed), it was sometimes tighter than other traffic (and tower) allowed. And when I owned an L-21, I had a ball keeping the pattern as tight as possible at Tri-County (48V), now Erie Municipal, CO. There've been plenty of other aircraft that were fun to keep fairly tight, but those two were the best.