Thanks JJ for sharing. I have had the same thing happen to me, nice to know I am not alone. I had a firm hard deck back then (should probably readdress this) and I was fine with my decision to land as it was made a year before after a friend hit a bump tried a few circles and then couldn't make his intended landing spot. After my fried broke his bird, I made my hard deck and several time over the years I have come up against the hard deck while hitting a bump, NEVER have I made that turn, as I had decided long before..

Having said the above, I did come to an outlanding last summer very low. Got to a "dry lake" with obstacles encroaching from both sides a small stream running through the middle. I arrived at the lake at 300 ft AGL and felt I needed to fly the length of the landing area to pick my path turn 180 degrees fly back, another 180 degree turn and land. The final turn was at 100 feet AGL as per my flight logger. A hard deck would not have changed anything. I made a mistake in pushing on 15 miles south of where I landed. I should have stayed and got the altitude or abandoned the task. I did no low attitude thermaling (other than scrapping rocks trying to break a thermal lose) while still at altitude over valley floor, yet still I was not in the best situation.

Mind you I had a sustainer with a starter and did not think of using it as I was too low when I got to dry lake. I am with Steve Koerner on this matter. Whether the goal is safety or leveling the competition field a fool like me will still screw up 15, 30minutes before the deck and end up where we tried to prevent by more rules and airspace restriction.

On Monday, January 29, 2018 at 6:10:52 AM UTC-8, wrote:
A few years back, I was turning final for a land-out at Swee****er strip (45 miles south of Minden). At 300 feet I hit a large bump and thought about trying one turn in it to see if I could climb, but declined because my hard deck was 500 feet. I landed, called in, then I watched another sailplane hit the same bump, but he turned in it, climbed away and made it home. Should he be penalized? Maybe he had more experience than I had. Maybe he knew that when a west wind blew, it went around mount Patterson and then met again on the east side.......right where my big bump was found. We can't legislate judgement or experience!
JJ..............PS, I'm old enough to remember when the national rules were only 2 pages!