I had a mildly amusing landout yesterday after a nice
day of soaring at Avenal Ca. I spent most of my 3.7
hour flight over 10,000', and some of it up to 12,500.
Shearline was working great! There was wave, and repectable
thermals. The whole time I had the field in glideslope,
as I was not quite equipped for a landout (no radio,
no phone, no phone humbers, etc) so I just enjoyed
the view locally soaring a 70 mile triangle in my Sisu
1a. Upon returning, being rather pleased with my flight,
I made a high speed pass. The wind had shifted since
last looking at the sock a few minutes back, and my
pass was rather high at it's lowpoint, around 400',
so I decided to do another pass downwind and land into
the wind since I had suficient altitude after pulling
out from the first one. My second pass was nice and
low, but I did not initiate the pullout early enough
nor aggressively enough. Wind gradient was also underestimated,
as well as the wind itself. When I finished my teardrop,
I hit a nice patch of sink to boot and that was it.
Now the fence before the runway was looming in on my
canopy so I pulled the brakes and dumped it into the
field next door. A 200 yard retrieve cost me 2 extra
dinners.

Paul Hanson
"Do the usual, unusually well"--Len Niemi