Private airport or small field for landout?

On Tuesday, May 26, 2020 at 9:26:20 AM UTC-7, wrote:

I learned to fly gliders in Miami FL, where the is effectively no cross country due to the terrain (or lack of it :-)). After I got good enough to stay up thermaling for several hours at a time, I decided it was time to move the glider to a place where I could learn to fly cross country, so I moved it to Atlanta. Unfortunately, the coronavirus hit and all the clubs are effectively closed to me while I'm sheltering-in-place.

From reading soaring books and articles such as Kai Gersten's "Off-Airport Landings", I always just assumed that you could never RELY on local knowledge and that there is a good probability that one day you will need to simply pick a field or private airport, especially on long cross countries, or cross countries where bad weather has caused you to deviate far from the task line.

Ben

Hi Ben,

Mid Georgia Soaring Association (www.soar-mgsa.org) is 1 hour east of Atlanta, and they are operating again with special procedures. Last weekend they did training flights to get everyone current for the year. They are also an amazing club to learn cross country. They host a XC camp every year in Cordele, GA, and one the main reasons its held there is because its surrounded by a lot of landable fields, which gives people . I've landed out twice there in unknown fields. Its not encouraged to go land in random fields by any means, but the knowledge and skills needed to make a judgment to find a field and land in it are taught because it's assumed if you do any sort of cross country flying in the southeast, you'll probably find yourself needed to land in a field at some point.

I've landed at a number of private airstrips - including some not far from Atlanta - and have always been welcomed. My best experience was landing at a residential airport community in a remote area of Arizona on May 5th - as I exited the runway onto a houses's front lawn, the owner came out with a cold beer and welcomed me to the Cinco de Mayo party - my crew joined me later! My worst experience was a farm strip close to the Mexican border that turned out to be a haven for smugglers.

Unless the strip is long-abandoned and overgrown, you're almost certain to be better off than landing in a field.

One final bit of advice - don't land in an asparagus field! It's an expensive crop and you will definitely **** off the farmer!

Mike