People do care..

"Stan Prevost" wrote in message
...

A hold can be almost any time you want unless you are assigned a specific
time, and that time applies to the inbound leg, and is not meant to be
precise. A default hold is a one-minute inbound leg, but you can make it
longer or shorter if you want and nobody cares. Don't go to extremes, and
go do five minutes, but within wide limits (depends on your speed), it
just doesn't really matter. There is no specification anywhere that a
hold must be four or three or two minutes or combinations thereof. The
only guidance is a one-minute inbound leg for the default holding pattern,
and staying within the maximum distance specified on the chart, if any.
Of course, on a checkride, you ought to strive for the specified time for
the inbound leg.


People do care about timeing in the holding pattern, time is set to one
minute on the inbound leg, (1.5 min at higher altitudes) to for "protected
airspace", this protected airspace is to protect you from other traffic or
terrain in a non radar enviroment. You can ask for more from ATC. But if you
do not ask, he is expecting you to fly one minute legs (1.5 min legs).. and
not extend your pattern to 20nm on your own whim.

BT