All of my out landings have been to airports or plowed fields so never
any damage.Â* An old flying buddy once told me, "Land in dirt, you won't
get hurt."Â* I've always followed that advice unless there's an airport
nearby.

I agree that it's the pilot, not the ship that determines the safety of
the landing.

On 11/22/2017 7:26 PM, BobW wrote:
Flaps are also a big safety benefit in outlandings?Â* Std Class ships
come
in comparatively much hotter?

Really? 44 contests flying a Discus and not a scratch. 5 retrieves with
tail booms broken....all flap ships. So, I say lousy pilots fly flap
ships.
Or, flap ship pilots make poor decisions. Find the ship you want to
race.
It will take hours and hours to become tuned with her so you might as
well
love the ride.

Heh. We're definitely approaching northern hemisphere winter.

My own "outlandings gone bad" observational experience is roughly
50%...and very few of the pilots involved approached their field
selection choices in as cowardly as fashion as Yours Truly. That said,
"the best of my tales" involved a PIK-20B (90-degree flaps) driver
seriously breaking his bird in an OFL to a smallish field...downwind.
It was "your classic lowish-experienced-OFL sort of
high/fast/in-too-close pattern, even without the tailwind assist. I've
little doubt that almost anything beyond an on-airspeed-1-26 would've
been seriously broken trying to make a downwind approach to that
particular field.

Flaps or not, there ain't no substitute for good judgment!

Bob W.

---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
http://www.avg.com


--
Dan, 5J