Re: Excessive
Normally, no it doesn't take all that distance to climb or descend, but if an aircraft has to go around, they might not be climbing back to a few thousand feet and may be turning into the pattern much closer than a departure. A plane may also come in on a short base from the pattern instead of flying a mile past the end of the runway for a long line up. The 2.9 miles is to anticipate those sorts of things plus a little margin. I was just watching a video on YouTube (just audio) where a 17 y.o. girl was doing her first solo flight in training to get her license and when she took off somebody spotting that one of the wheels fell off. She was very noticeably frightened and the tower had her circle around for a little while so a couple of inbound flights that were very close to land and she could burn off some fuel. They also wanted to get her instructor up in the tower to talk to her while people on the ground looked at the plane to see how much damage the plane had (it was just the wheel). Chances are that she wasn't pinpoint perfect on flying the pattern and if some yahoo had put up a drone, it could have spooked her. Spoiler, she made a perfect emergency landing and walked away with not even a bruise though she may have needed a change of trousers. Even the damage to the plane was minor.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
