On Monday, May 25, 2020 at 11:52:53 PM UTC-4, John Cochrane wrote:
This is an interesting post. Where are you flying from that you seem to be totally alone? I've flown from many operations, all with an active cross country community. In any such operation, there is a vast amount of local experience with the nearby private airports. Most of the laudable ones will have been landed at. The unfriendly farmers will be known.

If you're trying to fly XC all alone in a PW5, I might suggest first of all moving to an operation where there is a good base of active cross country pilots. They will help you out with far more than just knowing which airports and fields are good to land at. If you are already at an active operation, for heaven's sake go talk to the experienced pilots and get the local briefing!

John Cochrane BB

Tbanks.

I learned to fly gliders in Miami FL, where the is effectively no cross country due to the terrain (or lack of it :-)). After I got good enough to stay up thermaling for several hours at a time, I decided it was time to move the glider to a place where I could learn to fly cross country, so I moved it to Atlanta. Unfortunately, the coronavirus hit and all the clubs are effectively closed to me while I'm sheltering-in-place.

From reading soaring books and articles such as Kai Gersten's "Off-Airport Landings", I always just assumed that you could never RELY on local knowledge and that there is a good probability that one day you will need to simply pick a field or private airport, especially on long cross countries, or cross countries where bad weather has caused you to deviate far from the task line.

Ben