I've got to say that I've honestly never seen anyone leave the pattern just
to re-enter on a 45.


I do sometimes, though I come over the airport 1000 feet above pattern
altitude. It's the standard "strange field approach", and it's also how you
see the wind sock or segmented circle. Granted AWOS and GPS makes a lot of
this obsolete, but radios don't make the plane fly.

Jose

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