Are off-airport landouts common and/or dangerous?

I know one club where a landout is required before solo. The field happens to be adjacent and the farmer leaves a landing lane when he bales hay.

I was working on my second duration flight for my bronze badge when the radio announced a runway change. Not too long after, the quarry thermals packed it in and I belatedly realized I was now downwind of the field. But there were lots of freshly seeded long fields with furrows crosswind as I headed back. Then I found a field with furrows into the wind and worked out a landing lane clear of slope, power lines and tree. Continued looking for a thermal at high key until at circuit height and landed.

A private owner squeaked it back over the woods about the same time and admitted he would have been wiser to have landed out.

There's a significant number of gliders crunched in poor terrain near the home field after they had passed over landable fields. Sadder are the cases where the pilot spins in making a dodgy approach at the home field after arriving low.

That sounds like great preparation for cross country for club members
using club equipment.Â* Private owners, on the other hand, have much more
flexibility to explore on their own and, possibly, to break their
ships.Â* I was fortunate in that another club member with the same type
of glider took me by the hand and led me around a cross country course.Â*
Then it was a matter of going further away and testing my new found skills.

And yes, I landed out a few times.

On 5/29/2019 3:00 PM, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Wed, 29 May 2019 08:51:26 -0600, Dan Marotta wrote:

Really?Â* Four hundred actual off field landings?Â* Or low approaches with
the engine running?Â* There's a big difference (unless the engine quits
during the go-around).

UK rules: no solo XC without a cross country endorsement on your bronze
badge, so the Bronze is the first prerequisite. This requires 50 solo
flights of which at least two must be soaring flights of 30 mins or
longer, two written papers + flying tests.

XC endorsement requires instructed flights covering navigation, field
selection and field landings plus a 1 hour and a two hour soaring flight.
In my club we do everything except the two soaring flights in a Scheibe
SF-25 TMG flown normally for navication and field selection exercises
and with enough power on to approximate a 30:1 glide for the landing
practise - the student picks the field, flys the circuit, base and finals
and the instructor takes over and climbs away at around 100 ft or so as
soon as its obvious the is well placed in the field and (obviously) takes
over somewhat earlier if the student has got it wrong. All three
exercises are repeated until both instructor and student are happy.

FWIW in my club new solo pilots are encouraged to start work on their
Bronze as soon as they've converted to an SZD Junior. We have two,
primarily for early solo flying. The Junior pilots are also encouraged to
work on their two Bronze duration flights plus the Silver height and
duration tasks as part of their pre-Bronze flying because all these can
be done while staying local to our field.

Like all my peers, I'd done the Bronze duration flights as well as Silver
height and duration before I got the Bronze XC Endorsement and then flew
Silver Distance in a Junior on the next day that the duty instructor
thought conditions were suitable. This all happened within two weeks of
me completing the field landing exercises, so they were reinforced nicely
because the task I was set was to fly to another gliding club 60km away,
which I'd never previously seen, and land there.



--
Dan, 5J

"Last year, I did 400 off field landings with students in a a motor glider. {Emphasis by Tom Knauff} With few exceptions, each one of those pilots would have crashed during one of their first attempts at a real landing. (Remember we begin with easy fields.)"



Let's not lose sight of the fact that each one of those students likely had very limited prior experience in the 2-place motor glider being used and were likely doing one of their first motorglider landings of any type in that exercise. It should be obvious that one does not attempt an off field landing in a glider they are not fully competent to land at an airport. I don't see this "statistic" (if that is what it is) to be meaningful and it seems more designed to alarm.
ROY

At 13:48 29 May 2019, Roy B. wrote:
"Last year, I did 400 off field landings with students in a a motor
glider.=
{Emphasis by Tom Knauff} With few exceptions, each one of those pilots
wou=
ld have crashed during one of their first attempts at a real landing.
(Reme=
mber we begin with easy fields.)"=20



Let's not lose sight of the fact that each one of those students likely
had=
very limited prior experience in the 2-place motor glider being used and
w=
ere likely doing one of their first motorglider landings of any type in
tha=
t exercise. It should be obvious that one does not attempt an off field
la=
nding in a glider they are not fully competent to land at an airport. I
do=
n't see this "statistic" (if that is what it is) to be meaningful and it
se=
ems more designed to alarm.
ROY


Simulated field landings in a motor glider are not ideal.
But they are a lot better than no advance practice.
I remember my first landout,my heart was in my mouth and my pulse going
like a jack hammer.When I came to a stop I only had 1/2 a mile left in
front.

On Wednesday, May 29, 2019 at 7:30:04 AM UTC-7, Jonathon May wrote:
At 13:48 29 May 2019, Roy B. wrote:
"Last year, I did 400 off field landings with students in a a motor
glider.=
{Emphasis by Tom Knauff} With few exceptions, each one of those pilots
wou=
ld have crashed during one of their first attempts at a real landing.
(Reme=
mber we begin with easy fields.)"=20



Let's not lose sight of the fact that each one of those students likely
had=
very limited prior experience in the 2-place motor glider being used and
w=
ere likely doing one of their first motorglider landings of any type in
tha=
t exercise. It should be obvious that one does not attempt an off field
la=
nding in a glider they are not fully competent to land at an airport. I
do=
n't see this "statistic" (if that is what it is) to be meaningful and it
se=
ems more designed to alarm.
ROY


Simulated field landings in a motor glider are not ideal.
But they are a lot better than no advance practice.
I remember my first landout,my heart was in my mouth and my pulse going
like a jack hammer.When I came to a stop I only had 1/2 a mile left in
front.

My only early xc training was a couple of flights in a Grob 109. I thought it was invaluable Training!! We planned a triangle, flew it and made simulated landing on a bunch of landout spots, flying the approach to perhaps 20 ft AGL adding power and flying away. These powered flights taught me how know to think and plan safely as I started to fly my own XC flights. I have never had a high heart rate in an unplanned landing. Few years ago I did my first damage to a glider scraping the nose while landing on a somewhat dry lake, with lots of debris on roll out. Frankly I was too low when I arrived and too slow, turned final at 78 ft agl and 51 knots. Still have not had an insurance claim though, knock on wood.

As a former CFI-G......as well as later alomg SEL student.....best ANY flight instructor can do is.....
Train to think things out.
Practice in controlled situations.
Then.....(when student is at least sorta ready), drop the boom on them and see if they keep thinking. Goal is.....keep flying until everything stops. Hopefully you made decent decisions.
Stress (the whole, "drop the boom on them.....in a controlled situation......which NEVER covers all situations....") and see if they sorta keep thinking and adjusting.

Yes, I disagreed with a SEL CFI during simulated power loss. I picked a place, he gave me power back at about 200' AGL.
We discussed.
My comment, "how many times have you landed off an airport"?
I had many, had decent reasons for my field selection.


Go back to my earlier posts.......
Pick a place to land at home field EVERY time.....do it!
Try opposite patterns if traffic allows.
Ignore altimeter....basically useless in "Farmer Browns back forty" where ground level is unknown....what does it look like, what does it feel like (I unknowingly landed with full water in a ASW-20.....listed speeds to fly dry would have wrecked the ship....but it felt wrong....I flew faster until it felt right...) how to make better?

As stated, peeps trash ships at home......definition of XC....."beyond glide of airport"..... so 2 miles out but low.....you're XC.....

This is a sport that can be major fun......flying is unforgiving......gravity (or as I say, "no such thing as gravity, the earth sucks....") ALWAYS wins eventually....

Train, plan, think.......have fun.....

On Sunday, May 26, 2019 at 2:00:05 PM UTC-7, Charles Ethridge wrote:
Hi all.

First off, I was a fairly experienced CFI and Chief Flight Instructor with a great record, and am now a Commercial Glider Pilot, so I'm not a total newbie in the glider world.

I realize that my initial question may be obvious to some, but here in South Florida, we NEVER land out in fields (unless there is an emergency, of course). We only land out at one other airport, and even that is quite rare.

The question has two parts:

1. Are off-airport landouts common?

I've now heard/read two different philosophies on this. One is from Garret Willat's articles, in which he essentially says that if you are not landing out fairly often, you are not flying aggressively enough in your contests. Is he meaning landing out in unknown fields? or just at known-to-be-safe fields and airports?

The opposite philosophy I THOUGHT I heard in David Lessnick's great webinar last week was that one should ALWAYS be landing out at airports and never on roads or unknown fields....or at least have a KNOWN-TO-BE-SAFE field or airport within your glide range.

2. When landing out, are your gliders often damaged, even just a little bit?

The reason I ask is that I've been flying my glider fairly regularly for the past few years. I fly quite conservatively (compared to what I read in Soaring magazine anyway) and have NEVER damaged it, not even slightly. I am retired and not rich, and so when I think about how much it would cost to get even slight damage fixed, I hesitate to even contemplate doing cross-country flights, due to the risk of damage during landout, but more so due to the risk of my insurance company upping my premiums or canceling my policy altogether. If my glider is totaled by my insurance company, I doubt that I could afford to get another one like it, since I got a very good glider at a great price.

Tom Knauff, in his book After Solo, recommends specific and thorough landout training for the reason he states (p 122):

"During the 1987 Sports Class Nationals, more than 30% of the pilots entered in the contest, damaged their ships during off field landings!"

But as far as I know (Soaring magazine ads, webinars, this forum), no one is teaching such a course. So without confidence in landing out without ANY damage, is cross-country flying thus a rich man's sport?

Charles "Ben" Ethridge

I'll add my two-bits. It depends, where you fly, what you fly and how you fly. I have a few hours under 1700hr of glider time, mostly XC, and mostly in the 1990's and early 2000's. Ninety-five percent of my flights have been out of a western mountain site, Warner Springs, Tehachapi, Lone pine, Bishop, Minden, or Truckee. Not a lot of fields in those places, but I have managed to land just once in a field, 5 times on dry lakes and I can't count the amount of time I have landed at an airport other than where I had planned. Best when you can get an aero tow home. When I started to fly a Nimbus 4, 26.5 meters of wing, I made a conscience decision to use airports as alternates, although a couple of times I did get a pretty close look at a chosen field. I know at least one former US world team member and former National champ, current top tier competitor who flies 18 meter out of TX, just switch to 21 meter who also only uses airports as alternates. The guys flying the ridges in the east have much different conditions and I understand landing out in fields is just part of eastern ridge running. In the West we are on O2 flying over tiger country and someplaces like over the Great Basin, you can be 6K AGL and in sink and not within glide of a landing spot. If you are flying a 1-26 xc, you will be outlining in all sorts of places.

On Sunday, May 26, 2019 at 2:00:05 PM UTC-7, Charles Ethridge wrote:
Hi all.

First off, I was a fairly experienced CFI and Chief Flight Instructor with a great record, and am now a Commercial Glider Pilot, so I'm not a total newbie in the glider world.

I realize that my initial question may be obvious to some, but here in South Florida, we NEVER land out in fields (unless there is an emergency, of course). We only land out at one other airport, and even that is quite rare.

The question has two parts:

1. Are off-airport landouts common?

I've now heard/read two different philosophies on this. One is from Garret Willat's articles, in which he essentially says that if you are not landing out fairly often, you are not flying aggressively enough in your contests. Is he meaning landing out in unknown fields? or just at known-to-be-safe fields and airports?

The opposite philosophy I THOUGHT I heard in David Lessnick's great webinar last week was that one should ALWAYS be landing out at airports and never on roads or unknown fields....or at least have a KNOWN-TO-BE-SAFE field or airport within your glide range.

2. When landing out, are your gliders often damaged, even just a little bit?

The reason I ask is that I've been flying my glider fairly regularly for the past few years. I fly quite conservatively (compared to what I read in Soaring magazine anyway) and have NEVER damaged it, not even slightly. I am retired and not rich, and so when I think about how much it would cost to get even slight damage fixed, I hesitate to even contemplate doing cross-country flights, due to the risk of damage during landout, but more so due to the risk of my insurance company upping my premiums or canceling my policy altogether. If my glider is totaled by my insurance company, I doubt that I could afford to get another one like it, since I got a very good glider at a great price.

Tom Knauff, in his book After Solo, recommends specific and thorough landout training for the reason he states (p 122):

"During the 1987 Sports Class Nationals, more than 30% of the pilots entered in the contest, damaged their ships during off field landings!"

But as far as I know (Soaring magazine ads, webinars, this forum), no one is teaching such a course. So without confidence in landing out without ANY damage, is cross-country flying thus a rich man's sport?

Charles "Ben" Ethridge

David Lessnick's excellent webinar revealed two glaring weaknesses:
1. Lessnick had only one actual off-airport landing prior to going to flying in tiger country (eastern Nevada).
2. He passed up a perfectly good dry lake bed (the gold standard for off-airport landings in this country) to land on the worst possible choice: a road.

People need to get plenty of experience landing off-airport prior to heading into tiger country because they simply don't know how they will react when confronted with this situation.

As already mentioned, you need to go scout out these fields IN ADVANCE; fields that look great from 5kft+ will look totally different from the ground.

I also know of fatalities involving gliders that attempted to (unsuccessfully) glide into an airport (as recommended in this thread) rather than landing on a perfectly safe field that they passed by.

Tom

Thanks for your comments everyone!

I'm hoping that SSA (via David Lessnick and the gang) will do a webinar on this subject.

I will also speak with Rich Owens (per your suggestions) up at Seminole Lake Gliderport and hopefully get some inflight dual XC instruction with him. I've taken training there before and it's only a few hours drive from here.

Ben

The top most important skill is being able to think for yourself.

I stay OFF the radio until landed.

Last year at a regional, well provincial, contest the downwind drift proved too much for a certain thick headed pilot in his 27 who landed in the same quadrant as the club - much too visible to the flightline peanut gallery.

After landing the radio went nuts and a towplane made a low pass - fortunately after I had stopped, but made it hard to relieve myself in peace.

After I finished my business, I got on the radio to let them know that I would phone in after writing down the GPS on my landing card.