Effectively, if you join from deadside you will never reach the overhead, you will instead join on a tight decending deadside upwind/crosswind
No - many do it this way, this is actually a
crosswind join, it is a more practical way of doing it, but remember the overhead join was origionaly designed for non radio aircraft to come overhead and look at the signal square, so you would not
know where the dead side was until you had reached the overhead (airfield on your LH side until you know the circuit direction of course). Correctly, if joining from the dead side you would go overhead then do a full 180 (+/- depending exactly what heading you joined from) then let down dead side.
