Ventus_a wrote:


Talking of landouts close to home with trainers, a couple of years ago
in Auckland, New Zealand we had a Krosno KR 03 land across the road from
the strip. It was from a winch cable break and the instructor waited
for the student to make a decision about straight ahead or an
abbreviated circuit. Oops. . .too much time deciding so into the field
straight ahead. The retrieve was easy. They dropped the fence in the
field, took the winch back down the runway some and launched the glider
back onto the airfield LOL. Wish I'd been there on the day to see that


A good lesson. I pulled the rope on a student at 250 AGL when my club
was operating at the Pepperell MA airport. There are a line of trees at
the end of the runway but beyond was a 1500 ft long hay field - which I
walked several times a year. Anyway, the student took a long time to
decide which way to turn and then only banked it 20 degrees or so. I
just kept my mouth shut. By the time he rolled out on the rwy heading he
said "I don't think that we're going to make it". He was right. We
landed in the hay stopping just short of the trees, pulled the glider
back onto the airport property via a connecting dirt road. The Pawnee
pulled up and we took off in the other direction. Sure, I could have
coached him and got him back to the airport, but I think that he learned
a lot more from this experience.

Tony