Right pattern for practice?

"BTIZ" wrote:

gilder may have the right of way.. when he's landing and lower than the
powered aircraft.. but if he's trying to thermal out from pattern altitude
or lower.. he's not landing.. he does not have right of way over "landing
traffic".. but it's always, you never know when he's gonna bail for the
runway.

In the type of situation I described (forced landing at
another airport), I typically make several decisions to
land.

At a 1,000' AGL I'll have decided to land and be setting up,
double checking wind and traffic, approaching a pattern
entry point, but still hoping for lift, and positioning
myself with respect to wind to optimize my ability to make
some exploratory turns if I find something, but still be
able to safely enter a pattern after drifting downwind. My
gear will still be up. If I find a possible thermal, I will
make a turn and my mental state switches to "not landing."
After one or more complete turns, (during which I get an
excellent view of the pattern and the runway) my mental
state will change back to landing if things are not
improving.

Below 1000' my mental state may switch to "not landing" as I
start a turn in lift, but if it's going to change back, I
almost always know within seconds of starting the turn.
Mentally, I may have recommitted to "landing" while still
turning away from the runway. Again I get a great view of
the pattern. Somewhere between 800' and 600' my gear comes
out, and any lift I check will cause me to retract the gear.

As I turn downwind to base, I'm still hoping to be able to
make that turn a 360 deg. thermal turn. As I roll out,
unless lift hits me strongly (and it has, more than once), I
make the final, irrevocable commitment to land, double check
gear down and land.