Tight circuit
How I wish that I could find a civil airfield that would let me fly a tight circuit, I am sure that the local NIMBYS and the flying club owners are working together to make sure that a circuit takes in at lease three counties.
The result of this is that most PPL holders are unable to fly any thing tighter than a three mile final approach in the landing configeration, I don't blame the PPL holders it is the training system that has been unable to teach them to do anything else.
It is a pleasure to teach in an enviroment that has an oval 800ft circuit, this enables the student to get 12 or 13 landings per hour with a turning final approach. It requires a lot of co-ordination from the student but as they don't know any different they rise to the chalenge.
Flying time to solo is lower that average but I suspect landings to solo is about the same.
The aircraft used are C152 & PA28 flown at POH speeds with + 5kt for the turning part of the approach.