Are off-airport landouts common and/or dangerous?

Starting a new thread:Â* Your First Land Out

On 5/30/2019 4:37 AM, Charles Ethridge wrote:
On Thursday, May 30, 2019 at 4:17:59 AM UTC-4, Ramy wrote:
In 20 years of aggressive XC soaring I have well over hundred landouts, but less than 10 in fields, and less than 5 in unknowns fields. The worst damage I had was a gear collapse in a rough field (in an LS4 which are notorious for gear collapse) and very recently some belly scratches due to landing in a plowed field.
Well there was that winnemucca dry lake landing which wasn’t completely dry, but this is another story for another time, and over 20 years ago so don’t count, but yeah, beware of dry lakes which may not be dry...

Ramy
Ramy (et al): How did you get your INITIAL crosscountry/landout training? Was it formal, in-flight and required before doing your first crosscountry, like Martin Gregorie details above? or did you mostly just figure it out yourself as you went along, and stayed lucky? or something in between those two extremes, like what CindyB says about AirSailing Camp? (Note that I don't consider formal, required in-flight landout training to be "extreme", just apparently uncommon in the USA).

When I was listening to David Lessnick's great webinar, I kept thinking "There, but for the grace of God, go I." David seems like an intelligent, thoughtful, trainable guy, who just got unlucky. He was very brave to do that webinar. It is what prompted me to start this post.

Ben

--
Dan, 5J

Ben, I didn’t have any formal XC and landouts training at the time. I read books (Reichman) and participated in a couple unofficial lead and follow type flying but my main XC training was the prior 15 years of flying XC in hang gliders, so flying XC and landing out felt natural to me from day one when I started flying gliders.

Ramy

On Thu, 30 May 2019 08:23:56 -0600, Dan Marotta wrote:

Sadly it's not the same in the USA.Â* I only personally know one CFI-G
who regularly flies XC and he doesn't instruct.

Yes, I know its quite different in the USA. About the nearest I've found
to the UK style of club was a day I spent at Avenal back in 2001, which
was a great experience, including getting airborne there for my only
flight in a 2-33 - I'd love to have a flight in a 1-26. Avenal is still
on my list of places to go, but I haven't crossed the pond since 2003
(The Maxmen Free Flight comp at Lost Hills in February and then Kitty
Hawk in December).

Elmira also sounds as it it may have a similar atmosphere.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org

On Wednesday, May 29, 2019 at 8:13:42 PM UTC-7, Dan Marotta wrote:
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.

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.