Are off-airport landouts common and/or dangerous?

On Sunday, May 26, 2019 at 8:38:10 PM UTC-7, Bruce Hoult wrote:

While simply looking for something when you need it usually works out, it's a good idea to scout out some known-good fields in advance. If you have somewhere you know is ok every 20 or 30 km then it's hard to get caught short. Other local pilots will already have their own list, and many clubs publish consolidated lists, complete with GPS coordinates, notes, and maybe even photos. Driving around and looking at them from ground level (or grabbing a Cessna or motor glider and making some low approaches) before you start flying cross country in a new area is not a stupid idea.


+1 on scouting fields ahead of time. Know what the crops are and what they look like from the air. I failed to do this at one contest and it cost me a broken tail boom - my only serious outlanding damage in 40 years of racing..

At a western US contest site I fly frequently the task area is huge and there are lots of dodgy spots. I've scouted and marked in my waypoint database 45-50 fields, dry lakes, and roads (without highway markers). Some based on Google maps and street view, but many of the more important ones by driving up to several hourt out of the way to scout on foot. I also try to scout as many fields in the database as I can from the air when flying, regardless of whether I'm in imminent danger of landing.

It comes in handy. I remember one contest day in particular where I glided through pretty dead air for 70 miles before catching a 7-knot thermal 500' above a a little ridge. The last 20-25 miles of the glide was unlandable terrain. I had marked in the database the first group of cultivated fields in a valley 1500' or so below the ridge that generated the thermal. I never would've gone for it without that knowledge and the field programmed into the glide computer.

Fields can have surprises so it's important to know the local environment, particularly in terms of cultivation, but also in terms of meadows and roadways. Some places the options are pretty good and some places are no-go.

Definitely don't land with the gators. ;-)

Andy Blackburn
9B