Landouts:

When I was a member of SOSA gliding club in Rockton, Ontario, Canada I
was told the story of one interesting Landout.
About a mile from the end of the runways at SOSA there is one of those
Drive through African Safari type Animal Parks.

Well, I think you know where this is going......

One of the club members landed a 1-26 in this animal park as the final
glide encountered to much sink.
He landed in the pen that had the lions, tigers and other assorted
wild life.
Needless to say he was very nervous while watching some tigers came
over to see what had arrived for dinner.

The big cats came right up to the canopy and were smelling
everything.....I'm sure they could smell his fear as well!

He stayed motionless in the aircraft while the park rangers ushured
the big cats into another pen so he could derig, but once the cats
were out the monkies sat on his 1-26 looking for handouts.....a very
memorable landout for sure!


On another occasion I was at SOSA and the early morning pilots had
emptied the hanger and were preping gliders for the day.
When I came around the other side of the Blanik I was prepping there
was an Emu(Osterich) watching me carefully.....I was startled and was
not sure whether this thing was hostile or not.....another pilot
decided to run to the club house and call the nearby Park rangers to
pick up this escapee, but the moment he started to run the Emu raced
after him and scared the crap out of him.......running as fast as he
could the Emu simply ran parallel to him and seemed to just want to go
for a run with him.......it was hilarious as the rest of us were
yelling for him to run faster and laughing hard....fortunately nobody
was attacked by this huge bird and it all ended well....definately
memorable.

Ray