Your First Land Out

Describe your first land out and tell us if you had any specific prior
training for cross country flying or for landing in an unusual place.

As stated elsewhere, formal training for cross country flying and
landing out is sorely lacking in the USA.Â* Yes, there are a few places
where you can go to seek this type of training but, unless you live
there or nearby, you won't get it.

My story:

I owned a Mosquito and had an accomplished cross country pilot as a
friend and mentor.Â* He took me out surfing a cold front in central Texas
and opened my eyes to cross country flying.Â* Following that, there was a
local weekend contest at our club and I got a lot of good advice from
the contestants.

I don't recall the flight in which I had my first land out, but I do
recall the landing.Â* I found a beautiful green field and set up a
pattern to land and, on short final, it became apparent that it was a
vineyard!Â* Fortunately for me, there was a plowed field adjacent to the
vineyard and it was a simple maneuver to side step and complete the
landing across the furrows.Â* It was a bit rough and the field was sloped
upward in the direction of the landing so it was short due to the
slope.Â* There was no damage and the farmer, sitting on his tractor,
attached a rope to the release and towed me out of the field.

--
Dan, 5J

My first off field landing occurred 20 minutes after my first contest start, after poking around in 1 mile visibility and getting substantially lost. August 1991 in Elmira, NY.

For those that have forgotten (or never knew), August visibility in the Northeastern US used to be atrocious... and in pre-GPS days it was very possible to get lost :-). I used 970 feet of a 1000 foot long hay field.

The very next day, again in terrible visibility, I flew myself into an unlandable valley between Bath and Hammondsport. This time I knew where I was.... and I was beginning to think I might end up landing in Keuka Lake. Getting truly desperate, I selected a corner of a corn field where the corn was stunted. It was up against a steep hillside, the landable area might have been 300 x 60'. A terrible situation, but best available in this horrid valley. Reaching for the gear handle on right downwind, I took one more look around in the thick haze and I saw the unmistakable bright orange of a brand new wind sock at a private airport, about 3/4 mile further up the valley (it had not been visible when I selected my corn field landing spot). Right downwind for trouble turned into left downwind to sweet relief. I'm sure glad those days are history.

Here's a short article I wrote for my club that deals with field selection and process. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1gK...I-rAdMt01cHRV6

If you have good field selection discipline and good decision making and pattern discipline, you are 95% of the way home to keeping your glider shiny.

My favorite article on off field landings is by Kai Gertsen:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0By...05jaGNWbFRuMnM

best,
Evan Ludeman

On Thursday, May 30, 2019 at 8:41:19 AM UTC-6, Dan Marotta wrote:
Describe your first land out and tell us if you had any specific prior
training for cross country flying or for landing in an unusual place.

As stated elsewhere, formal training for cross country flying and
landing out is sorely lacking in the USA.Â* Yes, there are a few places
where you can go to seek this type of training but, unless you live
there or nearby, you won't get it.

My story:

I owned a Mosquito and had an accomplished cross country pilot as a
friend and mentor.Â* He took me out surfing a cold front in central Texas
and opened my eyes to cross country flying.Â* Following that, there was a
local weekend contest at our club and I got a lot of good advice from
the contestants.

I don't recall the flight in which I had my first land out, but I do
recall the landing.Â* I found a beautiful green field and set up a
pattern to land and, on short final, it became apparent that it was a
vineyard!Â* Fortunately for me, there was a plowed field adjacent to the
vineyard and it was a simple maneuver to side step and complete the
landing across the furrows.Â* It was a bit rough and the field was sloped
upward in the direction of the landing so it was short due to the
slope.Â* There was no damage and the farmer, sitting on his tractor,
attached a rope to the release and towed me out of the field.

--
Dan, 5J

My first-

1-26 flight for Silver distance from the then Chemung County Airport, Schweizer Aircraft Soaring School on 8-20-1965, I was 17. Came over high trees at the end of a nice but short looking (from the air) field in full slip and spoiler. I stopped with a very short ground roll and a lot of field in front of me. I think it was an alfalfa field.

Mike "4"

My first land out was 12k into my first 1000k attempt (always good to have big goals ;-)

Flying out of Mifflin County, my start was the next ridge over on Tussy. Another pilot was flying Jacks Mt and it was working, not great but working. I took a long tow to start on Tussy, but that valley was covered in overcast, and the angle to the wind was just enough different that the ridge was not working. No thermals to get up off the ridge, I stuck with as much as I could but the landable fields were getting farther and farther from the ridge so I headed out to the valley, found a nice, plowed 4000 ft field, and landed next to the road. It turns out that was across the street from the home of the airport manager of the university part airport. He got a big kick out of my "dropping in" and it was totally painless.

As has been stated, some places are much better for this than others, and there is hardly a better place than the valleys around Mifflin. I needed to land one day because of thunderstorms moving into the area, so I decided to use an airport called center hall. I had not landed there before, and the wx was getting close. I found myself saying "which one of these perfect 4000 ft long fields is the airport"? I finally found the windsock and "flew out the storm" in the cockpit, on the ground...

On Thursday, May 30, 2019 at 10:41:19 AM UTC-4, Dan Marotta wrote:
Describe your first land out and tell us if you had any specific prior
training for cross country flying or for landing in an unusual place.

As stated elsewhere, formal training for cross country flying and
landing out is sorely lacking in the USA.Â* Yes, there are a few places
where you can go to seek this type of training but, unless you live
there or nearby, you won't get it.

My story:

I owned a Mosquito and had an accomplished cross country pilot as a
friend and mentor.Â* He took me out surfing a cold front in central Texas
and opened my eyes to cross country flying.Â* Following that, there was a
local weekend contest at our club and I got a lot of good advice from
the contestants.

I don't recall the flight in which I had my first land out, but I do
recall the landing.Â* I found a beautiful green field and set up a
pattern to land and, on short final, it became apparent that it was a
vineyard!Â* Fortunately for me, there was a plowed field adjacent to the
vineyard and it was a simple maneuver to side step and complete the
landing across the furrows.Â* It was a bit rough and the field was sloped
upward in the direction of the landing so it was short due to the
slope.Â* There was no damage and the farmer, sitting on his tractor,
attached a rope to the release and towed me out of the field.

--
Dan, 5J

Had to be around 1978 and our club was on a summer camp in Bourges, Central France. I had just accumulated enough hours to transition into our Ka6CR and tried to thermal on a marginal yet breezy day. Needless to say, I didn't watch the 'Lift-to-Drift' ratio and found myself way downwind; too far for even the 'high performance' Ka6! Fortunately, the fields in that part of France are huge, so I picked a harvested one with a road and farm house and landed between them. The landing was event-less and with my French cheat-sheet in hand, I walked up to farm house and knocked at the door. An old lady opened the door and I read off the sheet in an attempt to convey to her that I landed that plane behind me in her field and if she would be so kind to call the retrieve office at the Bourges Airport. She looked puzzled, took my cheat sheet with the phone number and closed the door. Well, life seemed good, the cavalry should arrive soon. Far from it! She must have thought another German invasion was upon her and she called every police force she knew of. In short order, the local cops arrived followed by what may have been state cops (different uniform) plus some dudes in dark suites with a badge in their pocket. Oh boy - and I left my ID at the airport! So I produced the glider's log book, which had an official looking stamp for each year of its existence certifying the airworthiness after the annual inspections. The officials were overjoyed and eagerly copied any info they deemed relevant. One of the guys in the dark suit spoke English well enough and I got him to call the airport. They were of course worried because I was MIA and were at there with the trailer 30 minutes later. One of our girls spoke French and was able to explain the whole thing, after which the uniformed guys left with a snappy salut. It was a great experience, for sure!
A few years later, I landed a H101 Salto near a small French village in the countryside. There was some kind of a wine-harvest festival going on and I was invited to partake! I was offered everything other than the mayor's daughter and by the time the crew arrived, I was comfortably blitzed and of not much use for de-rigging the glider! :-)

As for off-field landing training: our club had SF25b motor-gliders; side-by-side, 45HP VW derived engine. The instructor would take us out on a course, pull the engine to idle and ask 'Where would you land out now?'. We had to pick a field and make the approach all the way down to maybe 150 or so feet before he would reapply the power and climb out. I thought that was an excellent way of training off-field landings.

Uli
'AS'

2/17/74, Homedale, Idaho, towed to1700’, climbed to 4300’ and turned to the heading for my turn-point, some 15 miles away. I had 27.0 hours in my recently licensed BJ-1B Duster and a total time in sailplanes of 43 hours................didn’t have a clue what I was doing! Following a county road as I got lower and lower and wondered why these green fields weren’t working? Kept passing up one field after another, finally at about 300 feet, I turned left 90 degrees and landed in low crops............minimal damage to my wheel fairing.
JJ

On Thursday, May 30, 2019 at 9:41:19 AM UTC-5, Dan Marotta wrote:
Describe your first land out and tell us if you had any specific prior
training for cross country flying or for landing in an unusual place.

Dan, 5J

Wave camp at Shiflet Field, NC, maybe 30 years ago. Flying a rented Schweizer 1-23 H15. No wind, no wave, but weak thermals. My last words before closing the canopy were "No way you could get lost here. There's the lake, there's the town, there's Mt. Mitchell." Well, when I sank below ridge top height, all I could see were the tops of trees and the tops of ridges. I stayed with the valley I was in where there were plenty of landing sites. Eventually, it became obvious I was not going to climb back out so I set up my landing pattern into a 2000' long hay field. On downwind, I noticed the field was actually on the side of a hill and was fairly steeply sloped from side to side. Full divebrakes and a slip turned my base leg into a short final diagonally up the slope. Landing was uneventful... at first. Then the glider started rolling back down the hill backwards. I managed to scramble out and stop the thing before we got going too fast. The only damage was that I ruined the gliding day for a couple of my friends who had planned to fly that glider after me and who, instead, spent the afternoon retrieving me. Thanks Jeff, Keith!

May 1986. Silver distance.
Colts Neck Airport, NJ to Flying W Airport, NJ.
Central Jersey Soaring Club's Pilatus B4.
Believe both airports are now gone, as is the club.
N95AS is now in CO.
Jim

My first land out was in a SGS 1-26, 4 miles from the club field. I had taken a tow and felt a big bump at about 1800 feet and thought it would be cool (and save money) to get off tow at that point. Circled back to the thermal(?) and struggled about 6-8 minutes to get any altitude: none to speak of and decided that safety was the best choice. I found the biggest fallow field and set up a good short approach to the field, just touched down past the fence and put the skid in the dirt. 150 feet from the fence, in a big field, with the only gate on the other side. Dragged the glider across the field just as a farmer came up as asked if I wanted a ride to the club field. Iwas fortunate as the club planned to de-rig that glider in the evening for a safari and I didn't have to put it back together.

Never get off tow to be cool!!

Mike B.

It was the first competition flying my 20.5m LAK 12 in the Club Class (severely handicapped). Flew too fast between thermals trying to keep up with the 15m gliders instead of flying to my gliders strengths. So landed up 8km short. Selected my field and remembered the advice from my instructor who said: "for your first land out you select the largest field and land in the middle, the second land out you land close to the gate". Now the LAK 12 is a heavy glider - and the trailer is huge. So I selected the large field and identified what I thought was the gate and access into the field over a railway line. Put the glider down exactly where I wanted. Walked to the edge of the field and realised the perimeter road was on the other side of the fence. The gate by the railway line had a huge padlock on it. There was no way of getting the trailer anywhere near the glider. In the end, the glider had to be towed the entire length of the field because the actual access gate was the opposite end from where I had landed.