On Sunday, May 26, 2019 at 2:00:05 PM UTC-7, Charles Ethridge wrote:
Hi all.

First off, I was a fairly experienced CFI and Chief Flight Instructor with a great record, and am now a Commercial Glider Pilot, so I'm not a total newbie in the glider world.

I realize that my initial question may be obvious to some, but here in South Florida, we NEVER land out in fields (unless there is an emergency, of course). We only land out at one other airport, and even that is quite rare.

The question has two parts:

1. Are off-airport landouts common?

I've now heard/read two different philosophies on this. One is from Garret Willat's articles, in which he essentially says that if you are not landing out fairly often, you are not flying aggressively enough in your contests. Is he meaning landing out in unknown fields? or just at known-to-be-safe fields and airports?

The opposite philosophy I THOUGHT I heard in David Lessnick's great webinar last week was that one should ALWAYS be landing out at airports and never on roads or unknown fields....or at least have a KNOWN-TO-BE-SAFE field or airport within your glide range.

2. When landing out, are your gliders often damaged, even just a little bit?

The reason I ask is that I've been flying my glider fairly regularly for the past few years. I fly quite conservatively (compared to what I read in Soaring magazine anyway) and have NEVER damaged it, not even slightly. I am retired and not rich, and so when I think about how much it would cost to get even slight damage fixed, I hesitate to even contemplate doing cross-country flights, due to the risk of damage during landout, but more so due to the risk of my insurance company upping my premiums or canceling my policy altogether. If my glider is totaled by my insurance company, I doubt that I could afford to get another one like it, since I got a very good glider at a great price.

Tom Knauff, in his book After Solo, recommends specific and thorough landout training for the reason he states (p 122):

"During the 1987 Sports Class Nationals, more than 30% of the pilots entered in the contest, damaged their ships during off field landings!"

But as far as I know (Soaring magazine ads, webinars, this forum), no one is teaching such a course. So without confidence in landing out without ANY damage, is cross-country flying thus a rich man's sport?

In New Zealand landouts are very common. I'd say something like one a week at my club, on average, and a lot more during a contest.

In the summer when most of the cross country flying is done it's pretty safe. Fields from which a crop of hay has been taken within the last month or so are common, extremely easy to spot from the air, and unlikely to have any nasty surprises.

While simply looking for something when you need it usually works out, it's a good idea to scout out some known-good fields in advance. If you have somewhere you know is ok every 20 or 30 km then it's hard to get caught short.. Other local pilots will already have their own list, and many clubs publish consolidated lists, complete with GPS coordinates, notes, and maybe even photos. Driving around and looking at them from ground level (or grabbing a Cessna or motor glider and making some low approaches) before you start flying cross country in a new area is not a stupid idea.

Where a field is big enough to aero-tow out of and the landowner is cooperative, my club from time to time takes early solo and near solo pilots and a couple of gliders there for a day away from the landmarks of the home field.

You can see a couple of practice approaches into one such field (an aerial topdresing strip, as is common in NZ) in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJapUCeDeOI