Andrew Sarangan wrote
I never understood why holding patterns are so damn important. I have
received a holding clearance only once in my life. Why are they required
for the recency experience and the checkride? Also, why are the entry
procedures so important? Is there any example where an incorrect entry
procedure would have caused an accident?

Interestingly enough, this topic constituted the bulk of my CFII oral.

First off, I agree with you - holds are pretty rare in the real world,
and in the stuff we fly there is, for all practical purposes, no way
to leave the protected airspace. Thus the official reason for
learning holds is bogus.

However, there are two reasons why they are important - one
operational, one training.

First the operational reason - holds are sometimes used for course
reversal on approaches in lieu of procedure turns. In such a case,
you are expected to do only the hold entry. Further, for your own
good you need to be well established on the inbound course before
crossing the fix. Finally, when this is done, the reason the hold was
chosen over the PT was to keep you out of airspace or obstructions.
So the bottom line is holding is not important until it it. Still,
there are other items that fall into that category (for example IFR
departures from VFR fields) that are not covered at all.

The training reason is the more compelling - good holding requires
good situational awareness. In fact, the hold is the best test of
situational awareness on the checkride. If you don't know where you
are, where you are going, and what the wind is doing you will not make
a good entry.

I doubt there have been too many cases where a bad hold entry killed
someone (it would have to take some very special circumstances) but
poor situational awareness is probably the number one killer in IFR
operations.

Michael