"Outlandings" discussion

So, what do you call an outlanding? If you land at an established
airport/airfield is this an "Outlanding"? Or is it an uncompleted
flight into an airport. I have read a lot of club SOP's that recommend
a "planned" outlanding into an airport as training for a real
outlanding! Not the same thing. Is this a recipe for trouble? Now I
know some of you fly where the only safe outlanding opertunities are
established airfields, i.e. the western portion of the US, but for the
rest of us these can be the choice of last resort. I I live and fly in
Sourthern Germany where outlanding fields are numerous and in the
Northern Alps the outlanding fields are identified and catalouged
(http://www.streckenflug.at/index.php?p=w_inhalt).

Bob
Waiting on the wave!

wrote:
So, what do you call an outlanding? If you land at an established
airport/airfield is this an "Outlanding"? Or is it an uncompleted
flight into an airport.

Mentally, I approach every landing made away from my runway of takeoff
as an off-field landing, whether made at an airport or not....run
through the same checklist w. the same rigor, etc.
- - - - - -

I have read a lot of club SOP's that recommend
a "planned" outlanding into an airport as training for a real
outlanding! Not the same thing. Is this a recipe for trouble?
Not - IMHO - if done per above. True, paved-airport landings don't
address the off-field surface issue(s), but I'm aware of at least one
broken G-103 done at a non-home-airport landing...and LOTS of landing
lights hit over the years. A paved-airport landing has all of the same
OFL landing risks save two: 1) known good surface, and 2) generally
decent approaches.
- - - - - -

Now I
know some of you fly where the only safe outlanding opertunities are
established airfields, i.e. the western portion of the US, but for the
rest of us these can be the choice of last resort. I I live and fly in
Sourthern Germany where outlanding fields are numerous and in the
Northern Alps the outlanding fields are identified and catalouged
(http://www.streckenflug.at/index.php?p=w_inhalt).
FWIW, my OFL checklist is S-O-A-R: Surface (Priority 1, 2 or 3) -
Obstructions (on said surface) - Approach (obstructions on...) -
Rectangle (as in, make your final approach a complete rectangle...for a
host of inter-related reasons).

Haven't broken anything yet...

Regards,
Bob - cowardly/careful/chicken - W.

On 27 Jan, 17:00, Bob Whelan wrote:
wrote:
So, what do you call an outlanding? If you land at an established
airport/airfield is this an "Outlanding"? Or is it an uncompleted
flight into an airport.

Mentally, I approach every landing made away from my runway of takeoff
as an off-field landing, whether made at an airport or not....run
through the same checklist w. the same rigor, etc.
- - - - - -

I have read a lot of club SOP's that recommend a "planned" outlanding into an airport as training for a real
outlanding! Not the same thing. Is this a recipe for trouble?

Not - IMHO - if done per above. True, paved-airport landings don't
address the off-field surface issue(s), but I'm aware of at least one
broken G-103 done at a non-home-airport landing...and LOTS of landing
lights hit over the years. A paved-airport landing has all of the same
OFL landing risks save two: 1) known good surface, and 2) generally
decent approaches.
- - - - - -


A landing at a strange airfield is just that! Any resemblance to an
'outlanding' is nothing more than coincidental!
If you are flying 'airfield' to 'airfield' you know that there is
going to be a runway and decent approaches you dont have to worry
about things like ........

Field selection, orientation, slope, surface type, crops and height of
crop, livestock in the field and yes approaches. Also it may not be
big enough so now what! Options and a 'plan B'

Then there's post landing safety, what happens if you stuff it into an
unseen obstruction in a remote field, will someone find you and/or the
wreckage. Communications? There may be no one about for miles and the
cell phone coverage could be lousy. Security, what happens to your
ship when you walk out?

How do you get the ship out? Access for car and trailer. Do the crew
even know where you are?

Your own well being? I have been in fields for up to 6 hours without a
roll of toilet paper - no problem at an airfield but it nearly cost me
a sectional
Water? Shelter? What about protection for self and ship from the hail
or electrical storm that was about to wash you out of the sky?

Ok so a lot of this is not a problem in the UK where the nearest
village is usually no more than a couple of miles away but in some
places I have flown they are very real considerations.

The pilot stress level are considerably more going into a 'field'!

nimbusgb wrote:

Some intervening questions/comments snipped...

A landing at a strange airfield is just that! Any resemblance to an
'outlanding' is nothing more than coincidental!
If you are flying 'airfield' to 'airfield' you know that there is
going to be a runway and decent approaches you dont have to worry
about things like ........

Field selection, orientation, slope, surface type, crops and height of
crop, livestock in the field and yes approaches. Also it may not be
big enough so now what! Options and a 'plan B'

One's OFL options obviously vary by locale. The closest I've come to
post-landing hypothermia was on a paved airport, in July, w. a
dust-blowing wind at sunset. Rather than use my cockpit, an unlocked
fuel truck was my chosen windbreak. No traffic (air or ground) at the
field for hours...until the local constabulary arrived as my crew and I
were struggling to remove wings in 35+ knot winds. (He didn't help.)

My point was/is that - riskwise - landouts at airports - at least in the
western U.S. - are really not very far from landouts in fields, and to
assume otherwise is to blandly risk bitter disappointment, and perhaps
an unnecessarily broken glider.

For the record, the worst crosswind I've ever had to deal with was on a
paved runway. Sometimes an OFL may be the discretion part of valor.

We're in complete agreement that one should always have a Plan B (and C
& D under development) until the final field is selected.
- - - - - -

Then there's post landing safety, what happens if you stuff it into an
unseen obstruction in a remote field, will someone find you and/or the
wreckage. Communications? There may be no one about for miles and the
cell phone coverage could be lousy. Security, what happens to your
ship when you walk out?

How do you get the ship out? Access for car and trailer. Do the crew
even know where you are?

Your own well being? I have been in fields for up to 6 hours without a
roll of toilet paper - no problem at an airfield but it nearly cost me
a sectional
Water? Shelter? What about protection for self and ship from the hail
or electrical storm that was about to wash you out of the sky?

Ok so a lot of this is not a problem in the UK where the nearest
village is usually no more than a couple of miles away but in some
places I have flown they are very real considerations.

Indeed, such considerations are very real in much of the world where I
regularly soar. That noted, I stand by my previous allegation(s).
Maybe one day I'll even purchase a cell phone.

I - rightly or wrongly - assume every glider pilot is prepared in some
measure for post-landing ground conditions short of a life-threatening
emergency. (I'd argue it's impossible to prepare for every emergency,
and any approach reasonable to the PIC is fine w. me [and my
wife]...even if it proves insufficient. No one forces us into our
cockpits, after all. Further, most beginners aren't soaring during
conditions conducive to routinely beyond-the-norm risk of life...at
least not in my US-centric experience.) In any event, I suspect we
agree the considerations you correctly mention are not really THE
primary ones of any lowish-experience soaring pilot concerned about the
mechanics of OFLs (in which way I took the OP's post).
- - - - - -

The pilot stress level are considerably more going into a 'field'!

Maybe I'm abbie-normal, but I consider strange-airport landings not much
less stressful than OFL's...and in (say) the agricultural bits of the
Texas panhandle typically *more* so. In any event, I'm not a fan of
suggesting to lowish-time OFL-wannabes that airport-landings can be
approached with the same casual comfort factor their home-airport
landings are. Just me, perhaps...

Regards,
Bob - unabashed (20 OFLs') weenie - W.

Bob,

Personally, I call landing at any place other than home-base a
landout, or off-field landing, or outlanding. It can be another
airport, or a field. My post-flight and in-flight preparation is the
same for all landings regardless of whether they are at home, or
somewhere else. By the way, always make every landing an accuracy
touchdown and accuracy stop.

Years ago, an instructor told me to make my first landout at a
familiar airport away from home. This would teach me many lessons.
Today as an instructor, I advocate the same thing. If one chooses to
do this, they will learn more than any classroom course can teach, and
learn it safely.

You should prepare for this by talking with positive and experienced
members in your club. Fact is that someone is going to have to
retrieve you. Enters a lesson: Buy them a nice steak dinner. Perhaps
you will plan an aero retrieve, or automobile retrieve. Enters another
lesson: Leave your car and trailer in combat readiness, for doing so
will make you a more desirable member to retrieve.

Bob wrote: Is this a recipe for trouble?

No, with preparation and discussion, an intentional first landout is a
safe maneuver.

New pilots have a natural and understandable fear to try cross-country
in a glider. Overcoming concerns of landing out is probably the
biggest reason some pilots never leave gliding range from home.
Practicing a landout under controlled conditions is superior to doing
your first one unplanned. As advised to me, my first landout was
intentional; I learned so many big lessons and little lissons (like
making sure my cell phone battery was charged, that I had a few
quarters for a pay phone, that I knew about landing lights, that
Saturdays are better than Sundays, etc.). My second landout was every
challenge imaginable all in one: rolling hills all around, fences,
small field, horses, 105 degree dry outside air temperature, thermal
on short-short final, downward sloping landing spot, only one head-
size rock in the entire beautiful field (which I avoided by one foot)
etc.

Thank goodness I already had a practice landout under my belt.

Raul Boerner
DM

On Jan 27, 9:07 am, "
wrote:
So, what do you call an outlanding?

Whenever I have to start the motor ;-)

....Before which I've already planned an outlanding and started the
pattern, just in case...

See ya, Dave "YO electric"

On Sun, 27 Jan 2008 06:07:16 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:

So, what do you call an outlanding? If you land at an established
airport/airfield is this an "Outlanding"?

The Freanch have a precise definition of an outlanding:
In French making an outlanding is called "aller aux vaches", "going to
the cows".

Since cows don't tend to on airfields...


Bye
Andreas

On Jan 27, 7:22*pm, Andreas Maurer wrote:

Since cows don't tend to on airfields...

In my many landouts only 2 had encounters with cows. Both were on
prepared runways and one was at a fenced municipal airport. At
Muleshoe near Littlefield I had pushed the glider to the ramp (apron)
and spent the next hour trying to keep a large herd of cows that
appeared from behind a hangar from approaching the glider. At a ranch
strip NW of Uvalde a very pregnant cow took a liking to the glider,
shredded the canopy cover, bent the TE probe, and did its best to get
in the way while we derigged. It's hard to argue with a large bovine
when you have a wing root in both hands. I don't know if is
significant that both these contests were in Texas.

To the OP. It may not matter what you call your landings, but if your
buddies all got home and are drinking beer and you call for a retieve,
I suspect they'll all think you landed out. And if you are in a
contest, and you only get distance points, the other contestants will
also think you landed out. (US perspective, YMMV)

Andy

Andy hit the nail on the head: If your buds drink all your beer and
you have to buy dinner, it's a landout!

Here in Illinois where I fly, you have to try pretty hard (in a glass
ship) to land off-field; there's an airport just about every 15
miles. Which makes it fun to push just that extra mile late in the
day, knowing you can get a short aero-retrieve if you pooch your final
glide.

And, while I have no hesitation to land at a strange airport, I am
more and more reluctant to risk my ship in an off field landing during
non-contest flights - it's just too easy to keep a good airport option
open all the time (really easy with a good PDA moving map).

Of course, this does require some homework, making sure you know where
all the good landing strips/airfields are located in your area - just
because they are on a sectional or database doesn't mean they really
exist!

Contests, naturally, may require a slightly higher level of risk - but
you can't win if your ship is damaged, can you?

Kirk
66

I'm with Andy & Kirk - if I don't make it back to my home field and my
beer cooler it's an outlanding. I have also landed in easy fields and
at difficult narrow strips and don't believe you should categorize one
as necessarily easier than the other.

Maybe it's no coincidence that the three of us have all flown a lot in
Arizona and the southwest USA where we have some really tricky strips.

Mike