I have never advocated not landing straight ahead - I agree that it is normally the best thing to do but I never say NEVER turn back
In which case it is you that has become dogmatic in the pursuit of pedantry.
Therefore as professional pilots and Instructors we have a duty of care to try and make people understand that it is an unwise manoeuvre and the likelihood of disaster is extremely high.
Others, myself included have agreed that it may be possible to turn back, by turn back we are talking about the attempt to land back on the aircraft behind you not trying to find a suitable place straight ahead or within a small turn arc. There are indeed sky gods who will make light work of such a manoeuvre. But as I have said many times in this thread, the average spam can driver is not a sky god.
Teaching it as a standard manoeuvre is wrong. The stats prove this and so the attitude of the establishment towards it has created the strong recommendation that you should never turn back for good reason.
Now if you think that you can do it and that you can train all your students to do it safely then I am truly impressed, you are a better pilot and Instructor than me. Please PM me your contact details as I am happy to take Instruction from a person as experienced as you who can teach me everything I need to know to survive a turn back.
As food for thought, the pilot I watched die on Saturday (that kicked this thread off), was he a sky god or was he thinking that he had exceptional circumstances and a turn back was appropriate, or did he maybe just think that it was an aircraft that he designed and built and knew like a second skin and it was his home airfield so he would be fine trying a turn back? We will never know, but it is another to add to the statistics that support the generally accepted advice that a turn back is likely to get you killed.
If we have Instructors sowing the seeds in pilots minds that a turn back
might work in the
right circumstances. Where do we draw the line at what
might not work? There are to many variables for us as Instructors to teach. The 'establishment' understands they are aiming at Joe average and as such gives us guidelines to work in. Instructors trying to buck against the establishment because they think they know better undermines the system.