On Monday, January 1, 2018 at 8:11:27 PM UTC-5, MNLou wrote:
I was one of the minority who voted for no change. My logic was, assuming most finish cylinders are well positioned and a minimum of 800' agl, you needed at least 600 feet agl to finish and then safely fly a pattern while merging with the existing gliders in the pattern. Below that, I felt it was unsafe flying.

If someone hits the finish cylinder at 400'agl, they will need priority in the pattern, thus creating a mess for those who are already stacked up.

It was pretty eye opening to me to be 7th of 9 in the pattern and have someone finish desperately low and need priority. Luckily, it was a nice wide runway.

Just my $0.02.

Lou

Lou, from my experience a higher finish altitude e.g. 800 AGL is actually causing traffic problems. Pilots choose different ways to lose altitude, often making unnecessary and unpredictable turns or building different patterns. Lower altitude makes everyone fly similar paterns simply because they don't have other choice, 500 feet seemed quite okay. I am sure there will be situations where higher altitude might be needed, but adopting unnecessarily high finish altitude creates problems of its own.