Actually have a couple of relevant stories about mega farms.

Avenal is about 30 miles North of Paramount Farms production facility. Paramount is one of the largest pistachio and almond producers in the country I believe.

They have a beautiful 4000ft or so paved strip in a highly strategic location for getting home or getting away to the south. One early March day, emboldened by clouds I pressed on despite only about 2500agl clouds. Everything was going fine until getting flushed by some westerly marine flow. Unable to get away, I had to land Paramount.

A couple of security guards show up and start taking my contact info. They were cool and didn't really quite know what to make of a situation. Then another car comes racing out. Security again, but this looks like a manager. She hops out of the car and starts telling the guys "No, no no, they're fine, they're corporate."

I look at my buddy (we were in my Duo) and decide to see where this goes. She tells the guy that we are from the office and it's ok and just about apologizes to us. Then looks at the plane. Looks at us. Back at the Duo and the fact that it looks nothing like a King Air. Lightbulb goes on and she asks if I'm from corporate. I opted to tell the truth. She was cool, we had a good laugh and I showed everyone the glider and talked about how we ended up there. A few minutes later the towplane arrived, I gave them my contact info and even got a security guard to run our wing as we towed out.

Positive experience all in all. Better than the other massive farm with a strip that I landed at with an angry cowboy caretaker that likes to brandish a pistol while telling you to get off. That airstrip is listed as "Hostile" in the DB, but it's still not too bad for the occasional landout. They just won't let us aerotow out of there.

A few months after my landout at Paramount we held our spring contest. It was a tough day and our turn area went near Paramount. We stuck 5 or 6 gliders on their strip that day and I think most aero-retrieved out of there.

Later that night I got an email from a manager at Paramount. He is a pilot and understands that they have a nice runway and we might need to use it in an "emergency" and that was OK, but we couldn't aero-retrieve.

It was a very polite email, didn't kick us off the airstrip. I followed up my response with a couple of contest t-shirts and two gift certificates for demo flights at the club for him or an employee. A few weeks went by and I got an email from his employee that got the certificates. He ended up enjoying a demo flight and joining our club.

Now I make sure to send them a note prior to our contest letting them know we'll be in the area and to let their visitors know we will have higher than usual glider traffic in the area. We continue to have a good relationship with them despite a record 8 gliders landing there last year.

The main upside to corporate farms is that you've got a very high probability of running into someone that isn't highly motivated to being a jerk. Around the central Valley of California, there are a lot of Duster strips and they are generally pretty friendly.

Last weekend we had a few pilots land out at a nearby farm. The owner/manager was cool with the gliders and even aerotowing out. I'll probably send a t-shirt and a demo flight offer over. It's cheap insurance to keep a positive image going.

Morgan




On Sunday, May 5, 2013 6:59:33 AM UTC-7, son_of_flubber wrote:
All of the land out stories that I've heard are about landing out on small family farms and the advice is always along the lines of, be friendly, let the farmer's kids sit in the glider etc...



Any stories about landing out in places other than on a small farm? Dealing with corporate security, corporate legal departments, bills for grossly inflated damages, pesticides, etc..



My favorite landout story involves a wetland, and quick while the EPA is not looking, a Caterpillar D-9 bulldozer. It is not my story, so I will not try to retell it, but maybe you get the picture of what I am looking for.