Sorry to go back a few pages... side effect of being several time zones behind the rest of the civilized world.
Hacker, the issue is that in the military you guys train the hell out of pattern work. I flew to Kona 3 time on Wednesday and the same P3 was there the whole time doing practice approaches to a few turns in the pattern and then back out to radar again. For several hours. Over and over and over. Same thing happens with C17s and the F22s and the KC135s and KC10s out here. I used to watch Harriers and KC135s do hours of pattern work at Willie when I was instructing there. Over and over and over.
You know how many visual approaches (from a downwind) I've done in the plane that I just hit 1000 hours in? Two. That's it. I've done a whole bunch of "base to final" sorts, but keep in mind too, I'm in an operation that does way more visual flying than almost any other 121 airline out there. We (121) just don't ever practice (in the sim and nobody in 121 is doing in aircraft training now) visual approaches. That's why, when we get them for real, even if we have thousands of hours of 172 time in the pattern to fall back on, it's a much harder maneuver than a straight in ILS, for us.