Come on chaps! 500 ft is any farm strip flyer's circuit height. You have got to pursue any worthwhile PFL down to practically down to the grass, because you will never otherwise know whether you'd have made it for real. All the vital judgements on slipping or not - or turning early to use an alternative parallel field, or s-turning to get into the only one available - take place below this height and really, really count in the real world.
F**k all those desk-bound sods and Nimbys quietly rubbing their hands at the prospect of easy prosecutions with a simplistic 500-foot height rule: real flying is more complicated than that. The existing, sensible, tried and tested 500-foot SEPARATION forming the basis of the existing Rule 5 is all about life and death--for individual pilots and grassroots aviation alike. Long may it live!