[BobDDuck]

Let me preface this by saying I am ALL about teaching a student by the book and the legal way of doing something.

That said, I had an interesting conversation with the captain I am flying with this month. In the RJ, we often will make right traffic at controlled fields. Granted that is complying with tower's requests so we are covered, but it really is a 50-50 split.

Also, I always drilled into my students to fly a rectangular pattern. Downwind to base and base to final. Nice square turns. Again, in the jet it is VERY rare to fly a 90 degree turn on a visual approach. Normally, from the downwind it is a sweeping turn that joins the final just far enough out to get stabilized for the approach.

Just something interesting.

And yeah, I would just fly the pattern below the clouds in left traffic, as long as it is safe to do so.