"Roy Smith" wrote in message
...
"Dan Luke" wrote:
I suppose so. I always have this feeling my old CFII is sitting in the
right seat, shaking his head when I don't do something "by the book."

Single-pilot IFR is all about task prioritization. Take care of the
important stuff, and don't waste time on the **** that doesn't matter.
As long as you stay in the protected airspace, nobody cares what your
holds look like, or how perfectly timed the legs are.

From an ATC stand-point, most controllers certainly could care less what a
hold looks like when flown. Personally, I just want you to maintain
assigned altitude and meander in orbit somewhere over the fix in the general
direction assigned. We controllers get really conservative around holding
patterns, and a tightly-flown pattern really doesn't matter. Likely, no one
in ATC-land will even notice if you nail the turns and the times, because
they are looking at a lot of other stuff on the scope. The prudent
controller will be using vertical separation below and above your protected
airspace, and he/she will be adding a lot of extra lateral protection around
your bubble too, just in case.

Chip, ZTL