On 5/27/2019 10:21 AM, 6PK wrote:
On Sunday, May 26, 2019 at 2:00:05 PM UTC-7, Charles Ethridge wrote:
Hi all.
Snip...
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?
Snip...
Charles "Ben" Ethridge
Snip...
Also as a rule landing on a public airport should always be the first
choice as we must assume that they are kept to a standard and are safe.
Lotsa sensible info/food-for-thought aheada my post. Arguably, it can all be
boiled down to: "YMMV!"
Some years ago my club had a (slightly) busted G-103 due to a landing on a
(public) A/P 9 miles away from the club's (public) A/P. Ye helpful glider
pilot, wanting to be a polite sort, opted to land in the grass beside the
(long, wide) runway...but made the (further?) mistake of opting for a
high-speed taxi across a taxiway "for convenience's sake." It mighta been OK,
but for the 2" lip marking the transition from grass to concrete taxiway...
Point being, that *every* landing (and site) has potential plane-threatening
risks, and it's up to Joe Pilot to sensibly assess them *before* assuming all
is well...e.g. I've seen lighted (public) airports of narrow pavement and
15-meter-narrow-ship-threatening lights. I've also eyeballs-on experience with
WAY too many 15-meter-span ships after tangling with runway edge lights (most
NOT adjacent narrow runways) for various reasons. In much - not all - of the
general region of the Rocky Mountain west in which most of my glider time was
gathered, plowed/disked fields generally offer fewer overt risks than even
most public airports.
Private airports not so. The east coast tends to have plenty of safer farm
fields where the west coat primarily the desert - has few. We had spent a
tremendous amount of time out here (the desert) to identify safe, safer or
barely safe alternates to airports. Just landing out in the desert
Willie-Nellie may reduce your glider to the equalent of matchsticks and
who knows what to your body. Just my nickel's worth....
Bob W.
P.S. The worst damages I've inflicted while landing gliders happened on paved
runways: 1) a collapsed gear on rollout (No! Really! Weak gas strut,
apparently...ultimately enhanced my "practical fiberglass skills"); and 2) a
weed-induced ground loop (pilot stupidity...did minor tailwheel damage to a
G-103; further-exercised previously-gained fiberglass skills).
P.P.S. +1000 on others' previous "Kids, don't do this!" warnings relative to
landing on roads. The idea of doing so is (apparently) strongly seductive to
pilots in general, despite years-of evidence/beaucoup-examples that bad
outcomes are the norm.
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