At 12:36 10 February 2018, Dave Walsh wrote:
You'd have to live in a very flat area to consider Enstone a
"hill top site": it's enormous and flat.

I wonder if anyone has addressed the "convenience" factor, and
if it might have been a player. I looked at the report and
screen grab pictures, so given the headwind and enormous size
of the airfield, it should have appeared to have been a "no
brainer" to just pull the dive brakes and land straight ahead.
That is, unless one overthinks it and decides that doing so would
mean a long ground retrieve back to the start point for another
launch. Could he have been thinking that he could just squeak out
a tight pattern so as to land back at the start point in order to
quickly get into the air again? I guess we will never know for sure.

I remember one instance back in the 1960's when George Moffat
was flying his SH-1 out of Wurtsboro on an "iffy" day. He got low
down by the sister glider field at Middletown and decided to land
there to get a re-light back to Wurtsboro. Being by himself with
no ground crew, etc, he decided to land just short of the take-off
staging area so that he would be able to launch from where he
rolled out and stopped. Except, George misjudged his approach
and wound up in the bushes just short of the runway. He had
also punched a good sized hole in the underside of one wing, so
he wound up having to get it trailered back to Wurtsboro to get
repaired. An example of very good pilot making a convenience
related decision that went wrong....

Thermalling low in order to avoid a retrieve or possible off-field
landing damage? -- a convenience factor from another thread.

Making an abbreviated pattern to avoid a long tow on the ground?
-- another possible "convenience related" decision?

We will never know for sure, but it is probably worth mentioning
during training for these types of events.

RO