DubTrub
"How willing is Fuji to stand up and say that downwind, several gliding-distances away from a safe landing, that you are "in the process" to land?"
Not quite what I said. My point was that I agreed with you that if the activity within the circuit forced you to fly wide so that you would be unable to land on the runway in the event of an engine failure I could understand your holding off until the circuit became less busy.
My point was as long as you remian within glide distance of the runway I dont see it matters one jot what you are actually flying over at the time.
I would be quite willing to argue that whilst you are in the circuit you are in the process of landing. Why else would you be in a circuit. The sole purpose of a circuit is to enable aircraft to visually space themselves for landing and control their approach onto final.