Are You Ashamed to Land Out?

[uneekc...@gmail.com]

Read the article regarding the diminishment of guys pursuing badges and a commonly held misconception that it takes greater than 30/1 to do xc, another thought came to mind. Namely, is there a stigma attached to landing out within the modern soaring community? Could this be a reason why guys are not overly enthusiastic about xc flight unless they own or have access to a high performance machine?

I think most of you regulars on here know my thoughts on the matter but I am interested in what you guys think.
Dan

[Papa3]

Not in our club (Aero Club Albatross - ACA). We even have a bit of a tongue-in-cheek tagline: "We never turn back". Of course, we require members to do their Silver distance in a 1-26, so the first landouts tend to be not all that far away.

One of the top awards we give out every year is our Golden Retriever, which recognizes the longest/best/most arduous retrieve of the last year. Some of them are pretty outstanding and always good for a laugh.

[uneekc...@gmail.com]

Yep u guys are great about getting guys started and then hooked on xc. I had a great time up there for the ridge seminar. But what I want to know is, was Daniels recent 9 mile 2-33 land out intentional? LOL
Dan

[Daniel Sazhin]

Hey Dan,

My post was poorly written before; I didn't land out last weekend in the 2-33. I flew to an airport 9 miles away and then flew back. The kid I flew with did 90 percent of the flying.

https://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-3.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?dsId=7708206

We could've done more if I wasn't shivering uncontrollably in the back-seat. 6000ft in March is chilly!

The 2-33 was landed out in February by another club member.

____________________

But on the subject of the thread, landouts are wonderful. So long as they are conducted responsibly and you make a safe approach and landing, they are a great adventure. I'd prefer not to land out in competitions, because they are costly in points... But otherwise, or given, a landing in a field is a great way to end the day. You know you've gotten everything out of the glider, yourself, and the conditions when you end the day in a field. And the experience of opening your eyes in an unfamiliar place after you've landed... it's like being an alien arriving on Planet Earth. Seeing the places, meeting the people, is fantastic.

Several times I have walked to a nearby bar, restaurant or cafe while waiting for a crew. The act of sitting down in the corner is just surreal. You are on the ground, sure, but you have a completely different perspective. A part of your mind is still flying, and you are completely taking in the experience of living.

Landouts are a great experience. Far from ashamed, I look forward to the next one!

All the best,
Daniel

[Tango Eight]

On Tuesday, March 24, 2020 at 3:28:09 PM UTC-4, uneekc...@gmail.com wrote:

> Namely, is there a stigma attached to landing out within the modern soaring community?

You're imagining things to feed your ego. Stop it.

T8

[uneekc...@gmail.com]

If it was unintentional, I have him beat, I once landed out 3 miles from Douglas Co airport in Minden and no it wasn’t on a stretched final glide lol. It was not even in a low performance machine, now that last fact was the real “salt in the wound” lol
Dan

[uneekc...@gmail.com]

Roger that Daniel and thumbs up on all you said. Some of my very best and most memorable experiences in soaring have been land outs. They truly are one of the funnest but almost forgotten aspects of xc flying.
Dan

[uneekc...@gmail.com]

T8 I have to “imagine” things, I fly a glider with very modest performance lol, if I lived in the modern soaring “reality” I wouldn’t accomplish anything xc related lol.
Dan

[coynepubl...@gmail.com]

No landing out stigma as far as the Crystal Squadron in SoCal is concerned. If there is a stigma, it's for having to come back for a re-light. The goal of every Crystal Squadron flight is a land out, and as far away as possible from take-off. (During the XC season, at any rate.)

[Charlie M. (UH & 002 owner/pilot)]

I just posted in another thread here.....

I'm "an older fart".... had many hours in a 2-33 or 1-26 before something with "legs"....although did a few ships in quick succession after about 200hrs in lower performance...

I am not making decent pilots in the US shiver if I show up at a contest.
I have pushed glass pilots further when I am flying a 1-26 with basic instruments.

Land out....sheesh.....no clue....maybe 50 times? Worst was a glass ship gear door ripped the hinge....flying next day. Maybe clean green stains from fuselage next day...
Yes, landed in a quarry near Wurtsboro, NY that a later new club member "heard about" (ex hang glider peep) that they stated..."no Frikkin way!!!!"
I was there, did it, tore up mothers company car exhaust to retrieve....glider was fine....

Ashamed?
Yep, sometimes......
Glider flew next day?
Yep.

Does "fecal material happen", yep.....

Stuff happens....part of HHSC Snowbird contest....correctly trained, thou shall be able to place decent....this is the rule thang for 20+ years....

[uneekc...@gmail.com]

Yes Coyne you guys have that “Combs” spirit there. I had the pleasure one time of helping him when he landed out on the back side of Mt Potosi. I was coming home from a little 4x4 exploring when I saw a libelle setting up to land on the dirt toad I was on. I quickly got off the road and he set her down right across from me. We had a great time talking about great basin soaring waiting for his crew to arrive.
Dan

[Dan Marotta]

Land outs are adventures in themselves!  I've landed out in numerous
plowed fields, a residential airpark, and a couple of airports. It's fun
to have a crew come and help with loading the glider on a trailer and
then enjoying a beer and dinner at some unexpected place.  I've also
been on many retrieves and had someone else provide the beer and food!

--
Dan, 5J

[J Smiley AH]

On Tuesday, March 24, 2020 at 3:28:09 PM UTC-4, uneekc...@gmail.com wrote:

At a National championship held at Elmira I landed out 6 of 9 days ( always in August)in my Libelle. I never flew another National Contest east of Weatherford Texas

[Stephen Szikora]

The only shame in landing out is having your retrieve crew point out that the perfect field you selected and landed in successfully was right next to a farm airstrip that you never saw!

[John DeRosa OHM Ω http://aviation.derosaweb.net]

My first thought is "Of course people are ashamed (freightened may be a better word) to land out." ... at least the first time. It is fear of the unknown. What will people think of me? Will I break something? Will I get hurt? I think everyone has felt this at one time or another. No one LIKpES to land out.

Letting go of the wind sock is a difficult mental hurdle. Get home-i-tis sets in. Landing out is, at the very least, an inconvenience be it a metal & difficult to take apart glider or modern glass one that is easy to do.

What is the solution? Of course we don't purposely train by actually landing out in a field somewhere. The alternative is to mandate spotting with the help of CFIGs good fields from the air and making it seem "normal" to landout. Read the books available! Simulation via Condor?

This training and mental hurdle can be difficult/scary in some regions (mountains, forested, etc) as compared to here in the flat Midwest where just about everywhere is landable.


Bottom line NOTHING is as good training as the reality. And that is a leap of faith sitting alone beyond final glide and getting low.

[jfitch]

On Tuesday, March 24, 2020 at 12:28:09 PM UTC-7, uneekc...@gmail.com wrote:

Not embarrassed to land out. But I AM embarrassed to break my glider. And the two are statistically highly correlated. If you are flying a 1-26 over Kansas wheat fields maybe not so much, a 21M in the Great Basin is a different story.

[Bruce]

In the Tucson Soaring Club, we do 2 landout training sessions each year. The first one, we do at paved airports with the airport's support. We tow and release and land at the airport, We usually have a Line Chief at the field to coordinate traffic and help get the gliders off the pavement and back on when the tow plane lands, the the student does an unassisted takeoff, is towed to the second airport where the process is repeated

For the second session, we use 2 undeveloped strips, we inspect the fields for safety, and clear brush as required. These are strips that are on our list of aerotow permitted. On these landings, the student with the supervision of the instructor gets the glider ready and hooks up. The launch is IFR (I Follow Rope), as in our environment it is always really dusty!

This goes a long way to decreasing anxiety of the first landout.

[bpatt...@yahoo.com]

An important feature of landing out has not been mentioned and the training discussed has not covered it.

The altimeter should be covered during any practice land out. In a lot of places it is worthless and can only give you wrong information. The pilot should understand when they can trust it and when not.

On my first landouts I also noted that after selecting the landing spot and starting whatever pattern (normal is best), I tended to want to hug the field and fly downwind or base way too close and end up long.

Bruce Patton

[uneekc...@gmail.com]

Thanks for all the responses guys. While in agreement with most all that has been said, I have a slightly different take on the issue of landing out.

First off let me say that I don’t consider landing at a developed airport “landing out”. Thats just parking her at another confirmed safe place. For me, landing out is having to put her down in a field, unused undeveloped airstrip or dirt road ect.

With that being said I operate under a philosophy which when simplified is this: iOccasional out landing is essential to develop and measure my soaring skills. If I do not find myself missing my goal occasionaly, I am not really stretching and placing myself in situations where I test my skills. Now I am not talking about stretching into unlamdable terrain in the “hope” that my skills will save me. I am talking about pushing early in the day, or late in the day when conditions are weak or weakening and stretching for that extra 5 miles or flying faster than normal on a strong day, working the lift band in a more compressed selection. Or stretching to test a hunch regarding the condx in that apparent blue hole. Either of the three examples can lead to having to make a save and a higher potential for landing out.

I have found that my soaring skills do not advance and actually diminish when I find myself just cruising sedately along that well established street, doing that old routine home field triangle or out n return. But the times I have deliberately pushed or explored are the times I have learned lessons and advanced my abilities.
Dan

[markm...@gmail.com]

Jean-Claude Killy, a French Olympic triple Gold Medalist in skiing (1968) said that if you never take a fall, you never learn. Gotta push sometimes.

[kirk.stant]

It's not the first landout of the day that is embarassing - it's the second one - especially during a contest!

One of my first contest flights, in a G-102 out of Estrella. Task was basically Estrella to Ryan and back. Pedalling hard to stay with the pack, got low on the way out and dropped into El Tiro, which was conveniently on the way to the turnpoint and even better, could give me a tow to get home. Off tow, spotted the pack heading home and pedalled off after them. Halfway back, here comes a solid status deck from the West. Near Casa Grande, we got to the shadow, and all but a couple of leaders (who had a final glide to Estrella) landed out within minutes of each other. I ended up in a wheat field (in preference to an active shooting range - seriously!), which led to a long, late "carry the glider out of the field at midnight" retrieve by my then future wife...good sign that! No damage done, but we picked wheat out of that glider for a long time after - and it took awhile to pass the club's "Lead C" award to someone else.

I still enjoy a nice landout - but now I really try hard to keep them to airfields...which is easy where I fly now in Illinois.

Of course, that does set you up for some interesting aero retrieves, say at night flying on tow by the light of your iPhone...but that's a different story...

66

[cliff...@gmail.com]

I was hoping you would post that Kirk, I dont think any of us, back in the day at Turf, would have been ashamed of our landouts. In fact they are the best of times! Still, I perfer the cold brew and company back at home airfield not to mention the convenience of not having to reassemble for the next days flying 😛

[jjd...@gmail.com]

So there were two nuts that evening?

What tow pilot was nuts enough to tow you up into a flight that would knowingly be so late that you had to fly by the light of your phone?

[George Haeh]

I have a small collection of landouts within 3 km of the field. On my XC class the first dictum was:

"Better a good approach to a poor field than a poor approach to a good field"

Perhaps in some of those cases, I could have squeaked it into the home field by throwing out my margins, or perhaps adding to the stall/spin on final or collision with obstacle tally.

One now gone instructor took umbrage to my landing out in an L-33 which has a considerable record of land short accidents.

On a contest day at another club I landed out in the opposite corner of the 1 mile quadrant where the host club was located. The subsequent panic on the radio was something to behold. And the towplane came over for a look. I finally managed to get in on the frequency that I would phone in my location after filling out the landout card.

[CindyB]

I agree on the part about 'ashamed' to
1, damage the glider
2, inconvenience an unscheduled retrievecrew
3, explain to family about late return
4, perhaps pay extra costs (tow or crew)

I don't think there's shame in landing out. I do think most windsock circlers lack the landing accuracy skills, and are rightly unsure about a landout's safety. Landing precisely 'where you always land' at home, is NOT the same as an accurate low energy touch in a pasture.
If you want to test my theory, see how many of your local pilots can touch & stop in a 400ft length of the airport -- NOT at the usual place. This 'game' of skill development got my students all excited to play on New Years 2018. The rated guys had a yard of excuses to avoid joining the event. Video on Antelope Valley Soaring Club's Facebook page.

The 'new' owners haven't been encouraged to develop the precision skill. They haven't seen the variety of weather for landings, the years in some of our logbooks, and don't understand how to develop that visual assessment to a flare point & energy shedding tools. This is a failure in teaching, not in their desire to be a competent pilot.

Just my opinion, from watching a few zillion landings, from the rear seat and from the ramp.

Cindy B