More landout stories

[Bob Lepp]

My 4 best:

1) First ever....nervous, but remembering what to do, flat field,
recently worked, no obstructions... I see a nice long field, on final,
see some wires in the way, alternative to the right is PERFECT!....
inside a horse track, must be flat, and a tractor is working it up as
I watch, up and down, then it leaves to return to the barn, it's wide
open!, I land uneventfully , lined up on one of the recently 'worked'
rows, canopy off, waft of barnyard smells, tractor returns, fresh load
of manure spraying from spreader behind tractor, cell phone home
message to partners, "I'm in deep **** here!", response is "Don't
worry, no problem, Willi won't mind!"... "No, I mean, REALLY, I'm in
deep **** here!" Camera equipped Ka6 overhead snapping away.....tee
hee!

2) 6 year old son, one of his early rides, winds reverse, caught 'up
north', get back almost, long hay field landing, says tiny son on
final..."This isn't anywhere NEAR the gliding club Dad!"...pickup
truck with field neighbours arrives, "Thought you were going to go
around one more time"..."Nope, no engine"..send son back to club in
truck to get help, I stay with ship...wife not impressed 6 year old
appears in back of pickup with beer drinking 'strangers'....many years
of wifely abuse

3) Same field, years later, crusty old owner arrives...$100 fee to
retrieve..paid to keep the peace and save time late in the
day...police said later "Call us, no one can refuse entry to retrieve
your ship"...he'll get his one day says I

4) Almost home... 3 miles short...nice field, nice owner and
neighbours...retiree Henry drives me back to club for trailer...brings
along, no exaggeration here....25 pounds of cookies in a large green
bag he gets from past customer in the cookie baking business (to feed
his sheep)...air cadets at club gliding camp are most impressed,
attack cookies...3 weeks later bag is finished...neighbour (college)
girl asks dozen intelligent questions while I derig, comes out to club
for free ride weeks later with parents, sends me a thank you card,
maybe a future member?. No other pilot finds the 'cookie farmer' that
season. I deliver an aerial photo of his farm to him later.

So, make nice, hope for the best, expect the worst, deal with the odd
bit of poop! Get some stories, pass them along. Oh, and buy the maple
syrup from the farmer's wife on your way out the gate.

[John Shelton]

My favorite was when I was "airborne crew" for Harold Gallagher at Avenal.
He was going for a Gold Distance. I was just hanging around the airport
playing and keeping good radio reception. When Harold was about a hundred
miles away, things started to go sour. I could tell from his tone of voice
that he was no longer thinking of up and was definitely forced to think
down.

So, I headed back in to land. Unfortunately, I didn't make it. I landed in a
nice soft field about 2 miles short of the runway. And, all the time, I was
carrying on a conversation with Harold about not worrying and how I'd be
there before he knew it and pretended to be writing down his coordinates.
Just trying to be supportive. No clue where he really was. I was busy trying
to reach a landable field near a gate.

Of course, I had no idea how I was going to get back to the airport to get
my trailer and then his. It was a long hike to the road. It's a popular
field. Some big names in West Coast racing have left their DNA traces in
that field trying to get home.

Harold had landed in a pasture in this giant Nature Conservancy preserve in
which every sign of humanity had been removed. He had had to climb up the
ridge line to try to make a cell phone call. Of course, when he reached me,
I lied about where I was. I said we were on the way and would be there in
nothing flat. Actually, I was just putting my glider in the trailer.

Finally, just at dusk, we pulled in and there was Harold as ****ed off as a
chicken in a sprinkler. He was walking out. He explained that while he was
standing there, something that looked like a deer only bigger (Elk) came
running to his glider from something that looked like a coyote but bigger
(one of the non-existent wolves in California) and the two of them played
merry-go-round around his ASW-20 until he cursed at them and they took off.

Harold felt better about it all when we explained to him that what he had
just had was an "adventure'. Regular Americans don't have adventures. They
go to Costco on the weekends and by gummy bears in 55-gallon drums. What are
the chances that if he hadn't been out flying without an engine over one of
the last wild places in the world and if he hadn't run out of lift and had
to make a forced landing in NOWHERE that he would have seen an Elk being
chased by a (non-existent) wolf? Not much chance. A life without
punctuations marks.

He was curious why it took so long for me to just drive down Hwy 33 to get
him. If he reads this, I think it will be his first honest explanation that
his "airborne crew" had stuffed it and was blowing smoke up his ass.

All that talk made him hungry so we had to stop off at a store and get some
gummy bears before driving the 100 miles home.