Jay,
I did put a smiley behind my comment about practicing emergency
spiral landing being fun and worth the cost of my engine overhaul.
It is clear that our main objective for obtaining the training and
frequent practice is safety. I would never jeopardize my life or harm
my bird just to have fun!

I have over 700hrs with thousands of takeoffs/landings. We average
about 250hrs a year and fly pretty much every week year around. Aside
from several long cross country trips a year, most of our hours are
practice flights either on our own or with instructors. We try to mix
instrument practices with visual flight maneuvers. Safety is always
our utmost concern. We don't do any non-traditional patternworks
without asking for tower permission or making clear and frequent
announcement at uncontrolled fields. We also don't do unsual
patternworks at busy airports or during busy time. One of our
favorite practice spot is Sullivan County airport (MSV) with 6300x150'
runway. At its busiest time, there are usually no more than 2 or 3
planes in the pattern. We always learn something new from a new
instructors, always find room for improvements in our flying skills,
and never feel that we are good enough that no practices are needed.

I fully expect that the pilots who go out for their practices
would take the same kind of precaution and they do so for safety and
not for thrill seeking.

I don't know the accident statistics of training or practice
flights but at the start of my flight training in 2001, I spent many
hours reading NTSB reports. As I recall, I would not go flying at a
new airport without checking the reports. Anyway, I recalled there
was only a handful of accidents occurred during flight training or
practices. Lack of skills, lack of preparation etc. were the major
contribution factors.

Hai Longworth