Interesting pattern technique

While attending an advanced x/c seminar last week I had the pleasure of
riding in the back seat of a Nimbus 3DM, and the PIC used a landing
pattern & technique I had not seen or heard of before, but I sure took
note of.

First think I noticed was that even though he'd been flying gliders
since before I was born 44 years ago, he made sure to arrive at the
airport with enough altitude to fly directly over the center of the
active runway to check out the wind sox and other windicators prior to
committing to a pattern. If the crosswind component exceeded 10 or 15
knots the wrong way, he would switch sides (e.g. right-hand pattern
instead of left-hand) so that his base leg would be into the wind.

Second was the fact that on downwind, he accelerated to 80+ knots while
dropping down to just two or three hundred feet AGL tops. Whoa! Base
and turn to final that low to the ground were new to me. But it made
complete sense. In a glider with such a large wing span, this was cheap
insurance against the worst possible wind sheer. Once on final, he
slowed down to 60 or 65 knots before he was 40 or 50 feet above the
runway.

I'll prolly get hollered at if I do that on my BFR this fall but it
strikes me as good practice, especially when flying something bigger
than 18M.

-ted/2NO