Outlanding stories

It wasn't a particularly long flight, and the landing wasn't in some weed
patch, but it's a good story anyway....

A few years ago, I was on a cross-country flight in East Tennessee near the
end of the Clinch Ridge about 40 miles from home when the weather behind me
started closing in, blocking my planned return to the field. The weather
in front of me looked pretty good though, so what's a glider pilot to do but
keep going! An hour later I'm another 30 miles further away circling
6000' above a nice looking airport (Green County) and I get on the radio to
call home to see about a retrieve. Fortunately, one ship is still in the
air and the message is delivered, but I'll have to wait a couple hours
before they can reach me. No problem. After another hour of local
sightseeing I'm tired and have shed my altitude, so it's time to land. The
landing is quite uneventful and I push the ship off the runway and take a
walk over to the FBO. They're not too used to seeing gliders land there,
so the usual crowd of GA pilots start asking questions. I get myself a
cold Coca-Cola from the drink machine and head back to the ship to wait.
Taking a nap under the shade of the wing seemed reasonable, so that's what I
set about doing. A few minutes later a couple of older gentlemen walk up
and start asking about the glider. We talked for awhile and out of the
blue one of the guys asks, "Would you like a steak dinner?". Is the sky
blue? Of COURSE I'd like a steak dinner. It turns out they were throwing
a big party down in one of the hangars and were absolutely wearing it out.
Dinner was great. Just as I was finishing dessert I heard the towplane
starting to make incoming radio calls, so I headed back for the glider to
get ready to leave. Most of my newfound friends had never seen an aerotow
before, so several of them jumped in their planes and immediately took off
ahead of us so they could see the whole thing from the air. Many of the
others got in their trucks and drove out so they could see from the ground.
After launching, there were lots of radio calls to the effect of, "good
luck", "come again any time", "glad to meet you". Fortunately, the ride
home was pretty uneventful with a landing just before sunset. I won't
forget that day for a long time.


Mark Lenox, E15