On 12/8/2014 3:49 PM, wrote:
The nightmare scenario landing gear up is hitting a half-buried rock that's
hidden in the grass/crop/dirt. I clobbered not one but two such rocks going
into a pasture years ago in which another pilot had just landed safely. He
didn't see the rocks or the damage they caused until he ran up to my
cockpit.

When the wheel/tire hit the first rock, the compression struts in the
landing gear failed (as designed; thank you, Gerhard Waibel!), allowing the
undamaged wheel/tire to pivot back and up against the bottom of the
fuselage where it jammed, keeping the fuselage well above the ground. The
*second* rock a few meters later creased the fuselage but did no other
damage because I had still had ground clearance. The landing gear absorbed
all the shock and was easily repaired by M&H. The damage to my spine if I'd
landed wheel up would have been much more severe.

I was sitting on a ridge and had ample time to pick a field and make a
pattern and a textbook low-energy approach. I never saw the rocks in the
grass.


IMHO, if stopping short is high on Joe Glider Pilot's priorities (as is, I
presume, doing so without damage to his valued, easily-damaged bod) - and both
these things have always been paramount in all of my off-airport landings
because, after all, I'm about to touch down on a more or less completely
unknown surface, despite my best airborne eyeball inspection - JGP's best bet
is knowing how to make a well-aimed, low-energy approach, flare, and touchdown
followed by the heaviest braking of which pilot/ship are capable without
putting the ship up on its nose. (Of course, you can do that, too, if you wish
and your brake is capable.)

My "hidden rock story" involves a huge, plowed/disc-ed, weed-free field in
eastern Wyoming in which I followed (most of) my above advice, came to a
damage-free stop in about 150 (paced-off) feet...and found I'd missed a
steroidally-enhanced, humongo-sized "loaf of french bread" rock by about 3
horizontal feet. The farmer may well have cussed every time he hit it, since
it was large & heavy enough to bend a disc. It was the only rock I saw in the
half mile I walked to the field's edge.

For the curious, I landed in the middle of the field because it was rolling,
and only my actual flare and touchdown was low energy; I used the extra
approach energy to follow the contour until the energy was no longer needed. A
different (shorter) rolling field may well have warranted a different approach
technique.

YMMV...

Bob W.