I am a farmer and pilot, I work with all the Mifflin contests, and have had
a few dealings with irrate farmers before. Most of them are just jealous,
and I hate jealous people. One even had the nerve to tell my father, who we
sent along on the retrieve to smoothe over this irrate farmer, that if he
can afford to fly that thing, he can afford to pay me 500 to get it out of
the field. That is not the point. The point is, if we start setting a
precedent of paying to smoothe people over, even if nothing is damaged, then
afterwhile we will have no where that any of us can AFFORD to land out. I
think it is the right thing to do to pay when something is damaged, but not
in a cow pasture!! Nothing can get damaged there. My family owns a farm
within the traffic pattern at Mifflin, if enough of you land out there, I
will fire up the grill and we can have a cook out. To paraphrase my point
here, be ambassadors for the sport, but don't be pushovers. After about 5
minutes with some guy in a field, you should be able to figure out if he
belongs to the human race, or is just some SOB trying to milk you for
money!!

Brian Glick

"Bob Kuykendall" wrote in message
m...
Earlier, "Charles Petersen" wrote:

...BTW, all concerned did act as
'ambassadors of the sport', but
the son was implacable.

In my experience, the most effective things for landouts a

* Make it clear that the landing was unintentional, and the field was
chosen as a best last resort. Be visibly relieved that their field was
available so that you didn't have to crash.

* If they are anything but happy to have you there, offer them about
$100 in cash per glider in exchange for any "damages" even if you
landed in weeds, fallow, pasture, or plowed. That usually cheers them
up at least a little. That's worked great for the two ag field
retrieves I've worked. If you don't have $100 cash, or couldn't stand
to part with it if you did, you probably shouldn't be flying
cross-country.

* If they demand more, give them contact info for your glider
insurance company and explain that the agricultural claims inspectors
will have to look into it. They will often just take the hundred bucks
rather than mess with the claims paperwork. But if you've landed in a
row crop or something like, you can be fairly certain that you _have_
made a dent in their bottom line, and you should be prepared to take
financial responsibility for the risks inherent in cross-country
soaring.

* When they do get really irate, go ahead and call the sheriff or
local law. You can't be exactly sure what the officer will do or whose
side they're on, but at least you can be relatively certain they'll
know that intentionally damaging an aircraft is a federal offense, and
they probably won't let anybody get hurt.

Other, more experienced, outlanders doubless have additional advice.

Thanks, and best regards

Bob K.