On Thursday, May 30, 2019 at 10:41:19 AM UTC-4, Dan Marotta wrote:
Describe your first land out and tell us if you had any specific prior
training for cross country flying or for landing in an unusual place.

As stated elsewhere, formal training for cross country flying and
landing out is sorely lacking in the USA.Â* Yes, there are a few places
where you can go to seek this type of training but, unless you live
there or nearby, you won't get it.

My story:

I owned a Mosquito and had an accomplished cross country pilot as a
friend and mentor.Â* He took me out surfing a cold front in central Texas
and opened my eyes to cross country flying.Â* Following that, there was a
local weekend contest at our club and I got a lot of good advice from
the contestants.

I don't recall the flight in which I had my first land out, but I do
recall the landing.Â* I found a beautiful green field and set up a
pattern to land and, on short final, it became apparent that it was a
vineyard!Â* Fortunately for me, there was a plowed field adjacent to the
vineyard and it was a simple maneuver to side step and complete the
landing across the furrows.Â* It was a bit rough and the field was sloped
upward in the direction of the landing so it was short due to the
slope.Â* There was no damage and the farmer, sitting on his tractor,
attached a rope to the release and towed me out of the field.

--
Dan, 5J

Had to be around 1978 and our club was on a summer camp in Bourges, Central France. I had just accumulated enough hours to transition into our Ka6CR and tried to thermal on a marginal yet breezy day. Needless to say, I didn't watch the 'Lift-to-Drift' ratio and found myself way downwind; too far for even the 'high performance' Ka6! Fortunately, the fields in that part of France are huge, so I picked a harvested one with a road and farm house and landed between them. The landing was event-less and with my French cheat-sheet in hand, I walked up to farm house and knocked at the door. An old lady opened the door and I read off the sheet in an attempt to convey to her that I landed that plane behind me in her field and if she would be so kind to call the retrieve office at the Bourges Airport. She looked puzzled, took my cheat sheet with the phone number and closed the door. Well, life seemed good, the cavalry should arrive soon. Far from it! She must have thought another German invasion was upon her and she called every police force she knew of. In short order, the local cops arrived followed by what may have been state cops (different uniform) plus some dudes in dark suites with a badge in their pocket. Oh boy - and I left my ID at the airport! So I produced the glider's log book, which had an official looking stamp for each year of its existence certifying the airworthiness after the annual inspections. The officials were overjoyed and eagerly copied any info they deemed relevant. One of the guys in the dark suit spoke English well enough and I got him to call the airport. They were of course worried because I was MIA and were at there with the trailer 30 minutes later. One of our girls spoke French and was able to explain the whole thing, after which the uniformed guys left with a snappy salut. It was a great experience, for sure!
A few years later, I landed a H101 Salto near a small French village in the countryside. There was some kind of a wine-harvest festival going on and I was invited to partake! I was offered everything other than the mayor's daughter and by the time the crew arrived, I was comfortably blitzed and of not much use for de-rigging the glider! :-)

As for off-field landing training: our club had SF25b motor-gliders; side-by-side, 45HP VW derived engine. The instructor would take us out on a course, pull the engine to idle and ask 'Where would you land out now?'. We had to pick a field and make the approach all the way down to maybe 150 or so feet before he would reapply the power and climb out. I thought that was an excellent way of training off-field landings.

Uli
'AS'