On Feb 3, 9:50 am, "Tuno" wrote:
I have a lot more respect for the young pilot who lands out 8 out of 8
times than the twirlybird who doesn't know what the terrain looks like
more than 5 miles from the field. Go Cherokee go!

My first flight at Ely was over 600km, my fourth one was 990km, my
shortest that week was ~500km ... and that was in a wing-loading
limited glider. Ely is just awesome!

2NO

Thanks! Paul is right, my glider is not some hotshot 40:1 longwing
jobby where you dont have to worry about making it back to the
airport. And the landout options are good here in the midwest. Due
to the lowish performance of the glider, I almost always choose to fly
straight out with no intention of returning. This leads to quite a
high likelihood of landing out! If I wanted to make it back to the
airport I would just fly locally

And FWIW, my Cross Country CFIG was Matt Michael, and the training he
gave me was critical to my cross country success. our first flight
was that 10 mile 1.5 hr drifting with the wind in extremely weak
conditions. landed in a young soybean field. next was an 80 mile
triangle attempt that came up short and landed in a open field. The
training in off field landings was very important and Im actually very
glad that we did land out. Making it back to the airport wouldve made
the training a lot less valuable, IMO. If you ask me, this is how all
cross country training should be done. Doing a written test and
making landings at the airport without an altimeter is no substitute
for actually landing out, if you ask me.