Here is my humble take on the question:
I would far rather be caught engine off when flying a tighter circuit that was conducive to glide approaches. Someone earlier quoted that 30% of
GA accidents occured on approach and the option to glide it in would be preferable to becoming stuck behind the energy curve.
The flip-side is that flying tighter circuits encourages steeper turns onto final / base leg placing more pressure on inexperienced pilots to overbank in the turn, thus making them succeptable to stall / spin incidents.
The question is, are more accidents caused but these type of errors or by engine incidents on long finals when behind the energy curve?
Any takers?
Best,
Sicknote
