Your First Land Out

My first land out was 12k into my first 1000k attempt (always good to have big goals ;-)

Flying out of Mifflin County, my start was the next ridge over on Tussy. Another pilot was flying Jacks Mt and it was working, not great but working. I took a long tow to start on Tussy, but that valley was covered in overcast, and the angle to the wind was just enough different that the ridge was not working. No thermals to get up off the ridge, I stuck with as much as I could but the landable fields were getting farther and farther from the ridge so I headed out to the valley, found a nice, plowed 4000 ft field, and landed next to the road. It turns out that was across the street from the home of the airport manager of the university part airport. He got a big kick out of my "dropping in" and it was totally painless.

As has been stated, some places are much better for this than others, and there is hardly a better place than the valleys around Mifflin. I needed to land one day because of thunderstorms moving into the area, so I decided to use an airport called center hall. I had not landed there before, and the wx was getting close. I found myself saying "which one of these perfect 4000 ft long fields is the airport"? I finally found the windsock and "flew out the storm" in the cockpit, on the ground...