lobstaboy wrote:Pedantic instructor mode (as always)
Think of the saying as being, "A good circuit and approach are necessary, although not always sufficient, for a good landing."
A good approach can make the landing easier, because there's less work to do for the very last bit. Which is why it's quite rightly taught when students need it to be as easy as possible.
The maxim is a pedagogical technique of simplifying things for students at the very point in their learning where things need to be simplified.
That is often important, but it is not the truth.
The truth is that if you get to the threshold at the right speed (or even faster than the right speed, if you've got enough runway ahead), it doesn't matter how you got there in the context of the landing to come.
Providing you can then completely forgot how you got there, and concentrate on the last bit. Which is hard if you're a new student and the preceding few minutes have been chaos.
So I'm not saying, don't teach good circuits and approaches - of course they should be taught.
But the saying itself is cobblers. I think we should be prepared to explain to students - especially the ones that are interested enough to be here in the first place - why things are taught the way they are, not lie to them.