On Friday, May 29, 2020 at 12:46:15 PM UTC-7, Hal 1L wrote:
Many folks who have their own landing strip will, if asked, not give you permission to land there. This is to protect themselves from legal liability. The question to ask is something like "If a glider gets low and must land on your field, would you as the field owner cause a problem for the pilot?" Most private landing strip owners are helpful and friendly to glider pilots who land there, even if their field is listed as restricted or private.

On Monday, May 25, 2020 at 5:35:28 PM UTC-4, Charles Ethridge wrote:
Hi all.

I'm a former cfi-i/mei and commercial glider pilot, but I've never gone cross-country in my PW-5 glider. Training up for it though. A question:

If you are in an area where the fields are small, but there are several private airfields around, which should be your priority?

Seems to me that the private airport would be safer, assuming you have enough altitude to overfly it. Also I notice that my (new) Oudie2 shows all the private airstrips around as potential landout spots.

Will you get in trouble (legal or financial) if you have to landout at a private airport (assuming you aren't declaring an emergency, of course)?

Ben

Not all private strips are friendly as anyone that has landed at Pala airport in Southern CA can attest. I landed a helicopter there once to check a chip light, holly hell, you would have thought a black man landed there. Security car, with lights flashing, siren wailing came scratching to a halt, too close for comfort. They demanded to know why I was there, how soon I could leave and why I flew a non-standard pattern. I calmly explained that: a) I was there because of a chip light; b) I would be gone as soon as I checked the chip light and verified it was safe to fly; and c) helicopters are supposed to avoid the flow of fixed wing traffic. I checked the chip detector, while another security guard came over to make me more uncomfortable. He loudly proclaimed "Those Goddamn Marine helicopters land here occasionally and we just hate that." I responded "so, did you just want them to die?" As I was getting back in the bird and going through the start up, yet another car with flashing lights comes up and said "wait here the president is coming", I responded "the president of the United States?", "no the president of the resort". That ****ed me off! I said, "great, if he is here in the next two minutes and can speak over the downwash." As I lifted off I could see yet another two security cars with full lights, running down the length of the runway to reach me. I assumed those cars contained rtes president and entourage. That seemed like a good direction to get my speed up in ground effect at about three feet AGL. Filed a NASA report, and put a black x by that airport in my mind. I have never experienced so much hate towards an aviator who just needed a place to check a problem. Never heard from them again but always made sure to do a non-standard approach and simulated touchdown every time I was in the hood. I was hoping to de-sensitize them to foreign aircraft and as a younger man, I behaved differently than now.