How true. I went to pick up 053 during the 2002 1-26 champs, and was
met by a local farmer alongside the field, that Neil had landed in.
Neil had gone down the road with another local farmer, and his gang of
excited kids, to use a phone.

When I pulled up with the trailer this guy gets out of his old pickup.
I introduced myself, and shook his hand. All he says with a very
suspicious tone was "sumpin' goin' on here". I told him yessir, one of
our pilots from the Air Force Academy's 2002 glider contest had to
land in this nice field. He just repeated his first statement and
added" that pilot had him a big bag of something that he carried off
with him".

I told him that the pilot probably had his water bag and his kit
containing his landout phone numbers. He then tells me how he suspects
his neighbor farmer, who had picked up Neil was in on the conspiracy.
Oh boy. Along comes a mom with a couple of kids. She's another
neighbor. The old boy tell's her "sumpin' goin' on here". She looks at
me, kind of rolls her eyes, suggesting to me that she too doesn't
beleive her neighbor here, is wrapped too tight.

So I offer up that I am a professional pilot and would be glad to give
the nice lady my credentials and some phone numbers to check it all
out. The farmer tells her to go ahead and write down the information.
He then goes away happy.

Neil comes back with the smiling farmer and his kids, we load the kids
up in the glider for pictures, and headed back to Bullseye. Some days
I feel like I would make a pretty good car salesman.
Gary Ittner wrote in message ...
plasticguy wrote:

Farmers don't
usually know squat about soaring. For all they know,
your full of poisonous fuel

It's not just the farmers.

One day at the '99 USA 15m Nats, I was trying to fly from the Big Spring
TX turnpoint back to Hobbs NM when I ended up landing at the Levelland
TX airport. (If you look up the locations of these three towns on a map,
you'll get a good idea of the size of the thunderstorm that I was trying
to circumnavigate.) The single runway was closed for re-paving, so I
landed on the taxiway and rolled to a stop on the ramp.

I had time to push my Ventus off to the side of the fuel pump area, call
for my crew on the airport pay phone, and strike up a conversation with
the airport manager, all before the next glider arrived. I knew that
Levelland is only 20 miles south of the Caprock Soaring Club's operation
at Littlefield TX, and so was not surprised when the manager told me
that he had seen gliders land here many times before.

I had dumped all my ballast 15 minutes before landing, but Roy Cundiff
did not pull the cork until he entered downwind for Levelland. I left
the airport office to catch Roy's wingtip as he rolled to a stop, with
half a load of water still draining out.

The airport manager came running up to us. He was on the verge of going
ballistic because Roy's Ventus was apparently dumping Jet-A fuel all
over the ramp, creating a huge fire hazard only 100 feet from the fuel
pumps! It took only a short time to convince him that it was merely
water, but quite a while longer to explain why the glider was carrying
so many gallons of water in its "fuel" tanks...

I was gratified that Roy tried as hard as I did not to laugh at this
man's concerns. And that brings me to this bit of advice: NEVER laugh at
anyone during a landout, unless you are sure that they are telling a
joke that they think is funny.

Gary Ittner P7
"Have glider, will race"