wrote:
On May 12, 12:21 pm, Ken Ward wrote:
SNIP

boy if landing out is such a crime i should be on death row.

My Std Cirrus is 36 years old now.
Was first owned by Ted Pearson - who won the 1971 Nationals with her. Subsequent
owners also flew hard. She has many flights 500km, and a few over 700km.
Consequently the number of outlandings in harsh South African veldt and ploughed
fields and all sorts of "interesting" places is impressive.
She has had both wingtips bashed, the gear doors ripped off, the belly scraped
and a couple of canopies broken. All minor damage that has been easily repaired.
Probably the worst damage was on an airfield landing when I damaged a wing
leading edge.

This glider has LIVED.

She is still pretty, flies well and I have the confidence that you have to
really try to break a well built sailplane. OK my impression is that maybe
Schempp-Hirth are stronger than average, but in my experience outlandings seldom
result in damage or injury.

Outlandings are not something to aspire to, but they are certainly no crime.
They are part of soaring. A consequence of having fun - and occasionally the
source of fun. An ex world champion at a contest was pointing out a plethora of
landable fields around the contest task area. When asked how he knew about them
his simple answer was that he had landed in most of them at least once...

So maybe outlandings are an indicator of success too - If you aren't making a
few, you aren't trying hard enough to be really fast. Which limits what you can
do. The logical conclusion of that line of reasoning is the guys who never leave
the airfield.