Landing out on a corporate mega-farm or other non-traditional ornon-optimal place?

On Monday, May 6, 2013 12:46:12 PM UTC-5, son_of_flubber wrote:
On Sunday, May 5, 2013 7:08:38 PM UTC-4, Papa3 wrote: . . . Yo: 1987 Sports Class Nationals at Elmira, typical Elmira weather, HHH. The This is exactly what I was looking for, but I only wish that you had delayed posting it for few days. Now I expect that anyone who comes to this thread with a good but somewhat lesser story will say, "Well I can't top that." and not bother to post their story. This is NOT a "Best Landout Story Ever in the World" competition. Please post "Personal Best Landout" stories. As far as FARs go, let me state for the record, that stories posted in this thread are entirely fictional (wink, wink, nod, nod) and any resemblance to actual persons or places is purely coincidental. (Nice try FAA!)

i've led a boring life. while i have had a lot of landouts none of them have come close to comparing. There was one tight field south of my CFI-G's house that he was convinced a glider could not land in, until he saw the Cherokee parked there.

I've had a few times where the police have shown up but always soon enough to call off the ambulance. They've always been friendly and helpful. One offered to give me a ride back to the station while I waited to get out of the heat (in the front of the squad car i assume). I declined anyway. The last one came out because the 80+ yr old lady who lived at the farm was getting freaked out that i was sitting outside her house waiting for my crew. She hadn't answered the door since i appeared out of the blue, no car or anything, in very rural western KS on a gravel road. She finally called the police when she saw the glider out in the field. Once the officer, who she knew of course, arrived, she came to the door and was friendly. He used one of her tractors to pull the Cirrus out of the field. My pickup would've gotten stuck, lit the dry wheat chaff on fire, or both.

One time after landing out on the north side of Wichita I walked across the street to a house where people were enjoying a nice summer evening on their porch with neighbors. A few beers later and some food Leah arrived with the trailer. I always decline offers of alcohol now...

oh one time after a landout in a 2 seater with my instructor we heard a gunshot and got a little worried. Farmer came out in his tractor and helped pull the beast up to a driveway suitable for de-rigging. We asked him about the gunshot since it had worried us a bit. He said he saw us land, fired a shot into the air and ran inside to tell his wife he had shot down an airplane. She said "BS" of course so he told her to come look and there we were out in the field.

Landing out has provided me with a lot of fun over the years.

This might be a good time to tell my favorite land-out story - when lift died one day, I ended up at small strip of an aviation community in rural Arizona that consisted largely of retired airline pilots with hangars attached to their houses.

I rolled off the runway onto the front lawn of a house where a Cinquo de Mayo party was in progress. The retired airline captain who lived there walked over and handed me a Margarita before I was out of the cockpit! My retrieve crew and I spent several hours there exchanging aviation tales with a varied lot of pilots.

Mike

On Monday, May 6, 2013 1:28:52 PM UTC-5, Mike the Strike wrote:
This might be a good time to tell my favorite land-out story - when lift died one day, I ended up at small strip of an aviation community in rural Arizona that consisted largely of retired airline pilots with hangars attached to their houses.



I rolled off the runway onto the front lawn of a house where a Cinquo de Mayo party was in progress. The retired airline captain who lived there walked over and handed me a Margarita before I was out of the cockpit! My retrieve crew and I spent several hours there exchanging aviation tales with a varied lot of pilots.



Mike

I haven't had nearly as many landouts as Tony, but several of them were a lot of fun. A couple years ago I ended up in a field about 15 miles from the gliderport. I tried to get the crew to hook the trailer to the car, but instead I got a picked up, and then had to hook up the car and drive back to the field.

In the mean time someone must have called in a plane crash, because as soon we got back to the field to de-rig the Ka-6 a local county cop shows up.

The usual questions happen, and he gets a ton friendlier after I explain that I didn't crash and no paperwork is required. So now cop #1 is a bit happier, but has to go, so cop #2 shows up to get my info etc. This guy is a bit more curious about these bucket hat wearing weirdos. As cop #1 left he mumbles something about a "special weather statement". We didn't give it a second thought until we notice the sky turning angry.

So now we're taking shelter in my trailer (think giant aluminum box) during a thunderstorm with pea size hail. So we make the best of the situation, and cop #2 is surprisingly cool about the situation.

The rain finally stops, and we continue to put the plane away, when the cop asks me a couple more questions. Right at this point i notice a bunch of water pooling on the turtledeck, and I want to make sure I get the Ka-6 as dry as possible so I brush it off the turtledeck. Right onto the pants of cop #2 :-).

Thankfully he gad a good sense of humor, and mentioned something along the lines of this will make a good story at the bar tonight.

To this day I still get crap from my retrieve crew for that one.

Pete

On Monday, May 6, 2013 1:48:13 PM UTC-5, vontresc wrote:
On Monday, May 6, 2013 1:28:52 PM UTC-5, Mike the Strike wrote: This might be a good time to tell my favorite land-out story - when lift died one day, I ended up at small strip of an aviation community in rural Arizona that consisted largely of retired airline pilots with hangars attached to their houses. I rolled off the runway onto the front lawn of a house where a Cinquo de Mayo party was in progress. The retired airline captain who lived there walked over and handed me a Margarita before I was out of the cockpit! My retrieve crew and I spent several hours there exchanging aviation tales with a varied lot of pilots. Mike I haven't had nearly as many landouts as Tony, but several of them were a lot of fun. A couple years ago I ended up in a field about 15 miles from the gliderport. I tried to get the crew to hook the trailer to the car, but instead I got a picked up, and then had to hook up the car and drive back to the field. In the mean time someone must have called in a plane crash, because as soon we got back to the field to de-rig the Ka-6 a local county cop shows up. The usual questions happen, and he gets a ton friendlier after I explain that I didn't crash and no paperwork is required. So now cop #1 is a bit happier, but has to go, so cop #2 shows up to get my info etc. This guy is a bit more curious about these bucket hat wearing weirdos. As cop #1 left he mumbles something about a "special weather statement". We didn't give it a second thought until we notice the sky turning angry. So now we're taking shelter in my trailer (think giant aluminum box) during a thunderstorm with pea size hail. So we make the best of the situation, and cop #2 is surprisingly cool about the situation. The rain finally stops, and we continue to put the plane away, when the cop asks me a couple more questions. Right at this point i notice a bunch of water pooling on the turtledeck, and I want to make sure I get the Ka-6 as dry as possible so I brush it off the turtledeck. Right onto the pants of cop #2 :-). Thankfully he gad a good sense of humor, and mentioned something along the lines of this will make a good story at the bar tonight. To this day I still get crap from my retrieve crew for that one. Pete

I'm really dissapointed in you Pete. My favorite Pete landout story was when I let him fly MY GLIDER and i flew my clubs Ka-6. Off we went XC and what does he do? lands out right after our turnpoint 50km away. Apparently he wanted the full Cherokee II experience. Supposedly it was a grass runway he landed in but it was basically a hay field. He basically called me on the radio and said "uh...now what?" I radioed him Leah's phone number. Using the far superior performance of the Ka-6 I pretty easily made it back to the airport. When I arrive I note the following:

My friend Pete is gone
My wife Leah is gone
My glider is gone
My truck and trailer are gone

What a deal! I had a beer and after another hour or so they arrived.

I've posted this before, but I think my landouts are more fun than most:

My first contest task was in a non-sanctioned event (the first PASCO League contest) out of Chico, CA. CD called a 120 sm triangle around the northern end of the Sacramento valley, which has plenty of landable fields, luckily, since I'd never actually done an off-airport landing. The day looked promising, with lots of cu's, but cloud bases never got much above 2000 ft AGL, so we pretty much ended up with a gaggle of about 20 gliders stopping in lift every few miles. Things went well until the last turn point, which was in the middle of acres of flooded rice fields, at that point everyone went into survival mode and scattered. Never did manage to hook up with lift again, and I soon was down to 700 feet over what looked like a fine dirt farm field with a graded dirt road down the middle. Only on final did I realize that the "road" was on top of a narrow levee between two dry sunken rice fields. I lined up as best I could, got it down right in the middle of the levee, rolled out about 100 feet, then the glider tilted over at a 45 degree angle, as the levee was about 4 feet high. Landing on the levee turned out to be a good thing, the fields were soft broken dirt with dead rice stalks and good-size rocks mixed in. Managed to raise someone on the radio, they got a message back to the airport for my then girlfriend (now wife) to come get me with the trailer (this was the first and last retrieve she ever did). Then I sat down to wait.

A short time later, a helicopter flies flies overhead makes a few circles, then also makes a landing on the levee (which was just barely wider than the skids). Just the California Highway Patrol, checking out reports of a downed aircraft, I assured them I was OK and help was on the way, so they headed off. Minutes later, a county sheriff's car drives out on the levee (which was just barely wider than the car), checking out a report of downed aircraft, I assured him I was OK, and help was on the way, he said he'd go find the farmer, and heads off.

A while later, a motorhome pulls over and stops on a highway at the far side of one of the fields, a man and a women get out, and as they get closer, I notice the woman is carrying beer. Turns out to be Karol Hines (LL), who I'd not yet met, she wasn't flying in the contest, but was heading up to the airport for the BBQ, she and her then SO heard on the radio that there was a glider down, and figured she'd bring necessary survival gear. So, we sat and talked, and waited, and eventually we saw my SUV and trailer making several passes from various directions, trying to figure out where I was. Eventually, the correct road was located, and my girlfriend and, luckily, another pilot who just happened to be a truck driver in real life, drove up to the edge of the field. After some discussion and pushing, we determined that since I managed to stop right at the middle of the levee in soft dirt, we weren't going to manage to push the glider off the levee, so our truck driver somehow managed to back the SUV and trailer several hundred yards out onto the levee right in front of the glider. We then had the interesting problem of how to disassemble the glider, since there was no way the wing stands would work. Had to resort to human wing stands, who held the wing tips over their heads, while we pulled the pins and got everything into the trailer. The whole thing was accomplished without a scratch to the glider, trailer, car, or participants.

Just as we finished, the farmer drives up, we exchange a few pleasantries, then he shakes his head and says "you can't be a very good pilot". He points over to the far side of one of the fields at a barely visible windsock and says, "didn't you see my duster strip over there?"...

Marc

On Monday, May 6, 2013 12:59:06 PM UTC-7, wrote:
I've posted this before, but I think my landouts are more fun than most:

One correction, the "rice fields" were dry water storage ponds for flooding rice fields, someone who actually knows how rice is grown corrected me once...

Tony wrote:
On Monday, May 6, 2013 1:48:13 PM UTC-5, vontresc wrote:
On Monday, May 6, 2013 1:28:52 PM UTC-5, Mike the Strike wrote: This
might be a good time to tell my favorite land-out story - when lift died
one day, I ended up at small strip of an aviation community in rural
Arizona that consisted largely of retired airline pilots with hangars
attached to their houses. I rolled off the runway onto the front
lawn of a house where a Cinquo de Mayo party was in progress. The
retired airline captain who lived there walked over and handed me a
Margarita before I was out of the cockpit! My retrieve crew and I spent
several hours there exchanging aviation tales with a varied lot of
pilots. Mike I haven't had nearly as many landouts as Tony, but
several of them were a lot of fun. A couple years ago I ended up in a
field about 15 miles from the gliderport. I tried to get the crew to
hook the trailer to the car, but instead I got a picked up, and then had
to hook up the car and drive back to the field. In the mean time someone
must have called in a plane crash, because as soon we got back to the
field to de-rig the Ka-6 a local county cop shows up. The usual
questions happen, and he gets a ton friendlier after I explain that I
didn't crash and no paperwork is required. So now cop #1 is a bit
happier, but has to go, so cop #2 shows up to get my info etc. This guy
is a bit more curious about these bucket hat wearing weirdos. As cop #1
left he mumbles something about a "special weather statement". We didn't
give it a second thought until we notice the sky turning angry. So now
we're taking shelter in my trailer (think giant aluminum box) during a
thunderstorm with pea size hail. So we make the best of the situation,
and cop #2 is surprisingly cool about the situation. The rain finally
stops, and we continue to put the plane away, when the cop asks me a
couple more questions. Right at this point i notice a bunch of water
pooling on the turtledeck, and I want to make sure I get the Ka-6 as dry
as possible so I brush it off the turtledeck. Right onto the pants of
cop #2 :-). Thankfully he gad a good sense of humor, and mentioned
something along the lines of this will make a good story at the bar
tonight. To this day I still get crap from my retrieve crew for that one. Pete

I'm really dissapointed in you Pete. My favorite Pete landout story was
when I let him fly MY GLIDER and i flew my clubs Ka-6. Off we went XC and
what does he do? lands out right after our turnpoint 50km away.
Apparently he wanted the full Cherokee II experience. Supposedly it was a
grass runway he landed in but it was basically a hay field. He basically
called me on the radio and said "uh...now what?" I radioed him Leah's
phone number. Using the far superior performance of the Ka-6 I pretty
easily made it back to the airport. When I arrive I note the following:

My friend Pete is gone
My wife Leah is gone
My glider is gone
My truck and trailer are gone

What a deal! I had a beer and after another hour or so they arrived.

Lol that was an awesome land out. Plus that had to be the cheapest retrieve
ever.

Pete

On Sunday, May 5, 2013 9:59:33 AM UTC-4, 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.

Landed out in a Texas exotic game ranch one time, flying at a regional contest out of Llano, Tx. 6000' paved jet strip with a hangar at one end, nothing else for miles and miles. No phone service, no people, no houses. Airport surrounded by a 20' high (I kid you not) chain-link fence.

I had a SPOT, so I pressed the non-emergency HELP button to send a text message to Dave Coucke who was also flying at the contest. Then I called for assistance on 121.5 and got a passing charter to relay a message to the retrieve desk.

After sitting for a while, I decided to see if I could find a human somewhere, so I climbed up the 20' high fence on one side, down again on the other, and started walking. After about a mile, I realized I was actually walking in a wild game preserve, and that some of the 'game' in this place might regard me as a fun toy to play with (or eat!), so I turned around, walked the mile back to the airport, climbed up and then down the 20' high fence again, and waited. After an hour or so, Dave Coucke shows up with my trailer, having tracked me down from the SPOT coordinates (thank you SPOT!), but we still don't know how to get the trailer to the glider. Dave's phone had service, so after many calls to various local police, we tracked down the local caretaker. The caretaker eventually got us in to the airport, on the way driving us past a herd of immense (as in Volkswagon bus-sized) longhorn steers.

TA

On Monday, May 6, 2013 1:59:06 PM UTC-6, wrote:
I've posted this before, but I think my landouts are more fun than most:



My first contest task was in a non-sanctioned event (the first PASCO League contest) out of Chico, CA. CD called a 120 sm triangle around the northern end of the Sacramento valley, which has plenty of landable fields, luckily, since I'd never actually done an off-airport landing. The day looked promising, with lots of cu's, but cloud bases never got much above 2000 ft AGL, so we pretty much ended up with a gaggle of about 20 gliders stopping in lift every few miles. Things went well until the last turn point, which was in the middle of acres of flooded rice fields, at that point everyone went into survival mode and scattered. Never did manage to hook up with lift again, and I soon was down to 700 feet over what looked like a fine dirt farm field with a graded dirt road down the middle. Only on final did I realize that the "road" was on top of a narrow levee between two dry sunken rice fields. I lined up as best I could, got it down right in the middle of the levee, rolled out about 100 feet, then the glider tilted over at a 45 degree angle, as the levee was about 4 feet high. Landing on the levee turned out to be a good thing, the fields were soft broken dirt with dead rice stalks and good-size rocks mixed in. Managed to raise someone on the radio, they got a message back to the airport for my then girlfriend (now wife) to come get me with the trailer (this was the first and last retrieve she ever did). Then I sat down to wait.



A short time later, a helicopter flies flies overhead makes a few circles, then also makes a landing on the levee (which was just barely wider than the skids). Just the California Highway Patrol, checking out reports of a downed aircraft, I assured them I was OK and help was on the way, so they headed off. Minutes later, a county sheriff's car drives out on the levee (which was just barely wider than the car), checking out a report of downed aircraft, I assured him I was OK, and help was on the way, he said he'd go find the farmer, and heads off.



A while later, a motorhome pulls over and stops on a highway at the far side of one of the fields, a man and a women get out, and as they get closer, I notice the woman is carrying beer. Turns out to be Karol Hines (LL), who I'd not yet met, she wasn't flying in the contest, but was heading up to the airport for the BBQ, she and her then SO heard on the radio that there was a glider down, and figured she'd bring necessary survival gear. So, we sat and talked, and waited, and eventually we saw my SUV and trailer making several passes from various directions, trying to figure out where I was.. Eventually, the correct road was located, and my girlfriend and, luckily, another pilot who just happened to be a truck driver in real life, drove up to the edge of the field. After some discussion and pushing, we determined that since I managed to stop right at the middle of the levee in soft dirt, we weren't going to manage to push the glider off the levee, so our truck driver somehow managed to back the SUV and trailer several hundred yards out onto the levee right in front of the glider. We then had the interesting problem of how to disassemble the glider, since there was no way the wing stands would work. Had to resort to human wing stands, who held the wing tips over their heads, while we pulled the pins and got everything into the trailer. The whole thing was accomplished without a scratch to the glider, trailer, car, or participants.



Just as we finished, the farmer drives up, we exchange a few pleasantries, then he shakes his head and says "you can't be a very good pilot". He points over to the far side of one of the fields at a barely visible windsock and says, "didn't you see my duster strip over there?"...



Marc

You are in good company, Marc. (Some details of the following story may be incorrect.)

It was mid-winter 1989 when a Convair 580 crew mismanaged an engine emergency by shutting off fuel to their only good engine. The 580 'glider' landed more or less successfully (they and their pax could walk away) in the Colorado mountains near Buena Vista whereupon a large number of boys ran up to the cockpit windows which were now at eye level due to a nose gear collapse.. The flight crew learned two significant things from the kids. One, they had landed inside a Colorado youth correctional facility and there was an airport on the other side of the road.

On Monday, May 6, 2013 9:29:35 PM UTC-4, wrote:
Landed out in a Texas exotic game ranch one time...

Frank, you have GOT to stop landing out so often...