Most amusing land out

I had a mildly amusing landout yesterday after a nice
day of soaring at Avenal Ca. I spent most of my 3.7
hour flight over 10,000', and some of it up to 12,500.
Shearline was working great! There was wave, and repectable
thermals. The whole time I had the field in glideslope,
as I was not quite equipped for a landout (no radio,
no phone, no phone humbers, etc) so I just enjoyed
the view locally soaring a 70 mile triangle in my Sisu
1a. Upon returning, being rather pleased with my flight,
I made a high speed pass. The wind had shifted since
last looking at the sock a few minutes back, and my
pass was rather high at it's lowpoint, around 400',
so I decided to do another pass downwind and land into
the wind since I had suficient altitude after pulling
out from the first one. My second pass was nice and
low, but I did not initiate the pullout early enough
nor aggressively enough. Wind gradient was also underestimated,
as well as the wind itself. When I finished my teardrop,
I hit a nice patch of sink to boot and that was it.
Now the fence before the runway was looming in on my
canopy so I pulled the brakes and dumped it into the
field next door. A 200 yard retrieve cost me 2 extra
dinners.

Paul Hanson
"Do the usual, unusually well"--Len Niemi

I observed an amusing landout last season. Fortunately was only
involved in laughing and making 'helpful' suggestions.

Visiting pilot had the use of a local clubs Grob 103. On his last day
he went along the Hawkdun range, got low, and had to land. He picked
the only large, flattish, green paddock around. This paddock should
have notches on a fencepost or something for the number of gliders
it's killed. It's very rocky and a Duo was wrecked there when the pilot
misjudged the wind earlier in the season. Lucky for the Grob the only
damage was to the wheel fairing.

Naturally with a couple of mountain ranges between the Grob and Omarama
he doesn't have radio contact. Some broken messages get relayed and
a retrieve is organised.

There are a few problems. It's a club glider, and from an out of
town club. No-one knows where the trailer is. A quick ring round
finds that the trailer is in Timaru. Probably not registered etc.

Although the paddock is only 50km or so from Omarama there are a few
mountains in the way, so it is at least a four hour drive. The last part
requires a four wheel drive too. And it's going to be dark before the
retrieve gets there.

Gavin has landed the Cub in the paddock before, so if the Cub was
available he could go down and tow the glider out. But the Cub is
in Timaru for maintenance. Another ring round finds the South
Canterbury club towplane (it's their glider) is also not available.

I suggest sending a towplane over and dropping a sleeping bag and a note
to let him know we're not coming today.

About now we find out that the pilot has to be in Christchurch to
catch his flight home at midday the next day.

Getting the glider is looking to hard, so now we're just looking to
get the pilot out tonight so he can catch his flight tomorrow. The
car thing is discussed, but it's not going to get there before dark
so there may be issues finding the glider. And the road isn't great
so there is a distinct lack of enthusiasm for a road trip. Gavin
rings around some of the locals and finds a farmer with a helicopter
who's prepared to help.

The end of day one has the helicopter taking some pickets down to
the field and bringing back the pilot. All happy so far.

Except maybe the gliding club whos glider is now picketed in a remote
paddock, abandoned by the pilot who has left the country.

Day two. Gavin calls a friend in Queenstown who has a towhook on the back
of his 185. He comes over to Omarama and picks up two people to get the
glider. One to fly and one to run the wing. Naturally it's a busy day
at Omarama and the two who are left on the ground in the afternoon are
the towpilots. So Jules takes off with our two tow pilots for the
retrieve.

The retrieve goes well, but takes a little while. Jules gets a bit
of a thump from a big rock, but had been warned and let some air out
of his tyres. No harm done. They get the glider airborne and fly home.

While they're having a good time down south, the entire Glide Omarama
course fleet land out up north. First time the whole fleet has landed out.
Five gliders. All on airfields. But no towplane to come get them because
the towpilots are all away getting yesterdays landout back.

So, the towpilots get back and immediately take off the get the fleet.
Jules goes to Lillybank up north of Lake Tekapo to get a Duo. The other
four made it to Pukaki, so Annie goes to get them in the Dakota. The
Dakota has been giving some trouble with the nosewheel shimmying,
and on the seal at Pukaki it feels pretty bad, so after two tows Annie
comes home leaving two glider behind. She doesn't want to break the
towplane.

By now Jules is on his way back from Lillybank, so he stops in at
Pukaki on his way past after dropping the Duo and gets the last
two home.

We get everyone on the ground before dark. Well, before you need lights
to land anyway.

Jules has to spend the night though. No way to get back to Queenstown.
Lucky for him most of the pilots owe him beer for rescuing them.

--
Philip Plane _____
|
---------------( )---------------
Glider pilots have no visible means of support

On May 1, 9:12 pm, wrote:

We told the group I met that if they ever made it to ames to come on
out and take a flight with the club. They didnt say that they
wouldn't. They would probably only be willing to use a bungee
launch. maybe a winch run by clydesdales??

Heehee. Thanks for the image!

On May 2, 2:22 pm, Philip Plane wrote:

A complicated series of landouts

Sounds like the plot of a potentially hilarious movie!!

Sounds like the plot of a potentially hilarious movie!!

Roger that! what a couple days!

From the 95' Canadian Nationals:

'Scale Landing':
I was crewing in the Nationals that year and my pilot
landed at an R/C airfield a short distance from the
gliding club, no big deal you say except the runway
was only 350ft. long with a 4ft. deep ditch at one
end! The windsock, hanger (which turned out to be
a sunshade) and runway were all 1/3 scale! and looked
like a normal airfield from the air. By the time he
realized the illusion it was to late and he was commited
to land. It was an interesting sight as I drove up
for the retreive (full scale R/C glider?!) and generated
alot of amusement for the locals.

Matt

Found this on Wikepedia...

http://www.aircross.co.uk/sisteron/2006/June30.htm

NM

Rural New England (north east US)is a sea of tall trees. I'm flying
along, not low, and I see this 'runway' cut into the forest, about
3000ft/1000m long - and normal width. The problem was that it wasn't on
my chart. Now, I knew where I was, I thought, but now I'm starting to
have doubts. About 2 minutes later I'm over the source of my confusion
and then I see the grandstands. My runway was a drag strip in Epping,
New Hampshire.

Tony V, "6N"

In article ,
Matt Keast wrote:

From the 95' Canadian Nationals:

'Scale Landing':
I was crewing in the Nationals that year and my pilot
landed at an R/C airfield a short distance from the
gliding club, no big deal you say except the runway
was only 350ft. long with a 4ft. deep ditch at one
end! The windsock, hanger (which turned out to be
a sunshade) and runway were all 1/3 scale! and looked
like a normal airfield from the air. By the time he
realized the illusion it was to late and he was commited
to land. It was an interesting sight as I drove up
for the retreive (full scale R/C glider?!) and generated
alot of amusement for the locals.

Matt

We have a local "RC" strip here right on the banks of the Chattahoochee
river (Georgia, USA). It's actually a closed municipal airport that is
used for RC flying and has a walking/biking path around it. The local RC
club keeps part of it mowed for their operations, and we use it for the
occasional outlanding. Because it's right in a bend in the river, the
water, mist, reeds, and lush vegetation give the area around the strip a
Jurassic aspect.

Passing rain showers cut me off from home on a late summer afternoon and
I had to put the Libelle down at the RC field. It had only been a small
amount of rain, but the sun was low and pockets of mist were collecting
in the creek beds and river valley, including all around the RC field.
Now, the RC guys only mow about 50 yards of the old runway near the
northwest end, but it being a short strip and wanting to land upwind, I
elected to land midfield in what I thought was normal pasture grass. It
turned out to be VERY tall grass. Like 4 feet tall, with lots of seed
heads. Of course, I forgot to close the air vent. Upon touching down, I
was completely submerged in this green sea of grass. Falling into that
green depth and being pelted by seed to boot, I was lucky not to have
ground looped.The torrent of grass seed that came rushing out of the air
vent right into my face would have been funny on it's own. The glider
picked up a fair load of grass stains on the wings and nose and was
dragging quite a lot of grass stalks with it. The really amusing part
though, was when I emerged from the grass onto the mowed part of the
runway. An older local fellow was biking around the perimeter track. His
back was to me and he had not seen me touch down. He rounded the corner
just as the ship, still at some speed, emerged from the tall grass. The
sudden appearance of the glider startled him and he actually fell/jumped
off the bicycle letting it fall. Later, he told me that it had nearly
scared him out of skin when the glider, in his words, "...lunged out of
the grass like some kind of giant bug". He said his first thought was
that some horrible thing had him.


WB
H301 #19

If you ever meet him, ask Oscar Boesch about the time he landed out at
the Four Seasons Nudist Camp!!!