The difference between the final at the airports you mentioned, and a
typical contest "pattern roulette" is that the aircraft landing are
configured, stabilized, sequenced, and know where their traffic is. No
comparison here.

A couple of years ago at Region 9 Hobbs, all the classes were arriving
from everywhere. The Standards were coming from the east, flying over
the ramp, turning left over the gate, then turning back to the east for
left traffic for the ramp, crossing over/under the other finishers.
Wow, what a show.

JJ's right.

wrote:
In response to your first paragraph, at aiports all over the country
aircraft come within less than 500 feet of structures and people at
speeds above 150 mph thousands of times each day, every day of the
year. Midway, Reagan National, and Laguardia all have approaches that
bring them over people and buildings. I have on many occasions
watched
landings from a park several hunderd feet from the threshold of one
of
Reagan National's runways. Planes pass overhead no more than 200 feet
above the ground.

The rule, as I recall, states "except for take-off and landing..."
Note
that most CDs post NOTAMs closing the airport during contest launch
and
recovery operations. This implies a tacit waiver for a variety of
soaring related operations in the vicinity of the airport.

As for a the owner of mobile home, parked on the airport during a
scheduled, sanctioned soaring contest asking for a change in
practices, I'd be tempted to point at the wheels and leave my answer
at
that. But that wouldn't be very diplo. Perhaps a better way to
address
it would be to require RVs stay out of the way of glider operations.
You can park your RV here. This will avoid any conflict with
aircraft.
I'll bet the argument goes the other way... convenience over
perceived
safety issues. Its just a matter of crafting the either/or.

As for the cylinder, in another thread someone suggested I not pull
up
after piercing the side, but just bleed off speed as I head towards
the
airport. Now I have pilots attacking me from below. How much drag
does
a ball turret gun cost?