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"Outlandings" discussion
So, what do you call an outlanding? If you land at an established
airport/airfield is this an "Outlanding"? Or is it an uncompleted flight into an airport. I have read a lot of club SOP's that recommend a "planned" outlanding into an airport as training for a real outlanding! Not the same thing. Is this a recipe for trouble? Now I know some of you fly where the only safe outlanding opertunities are established airfields, i.e. the western portion of the US, but for the rest of us these can be the choice of last resort. I I live and fly in Sourthern Germany where outlanding fields are numerous and in the Northern Alps the outlanding fields are identified and catalouged (http://www.streckenflug.at/index.php?p=w_inhalt). Bob Waiting on the wave! |
#3
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"Outlandings" discussion
On 27 Jan, 17:00, Bob Whelan wrote:
wrote: So, what do you call an outlanding? If you land at an established airport/airfield is this an "Outlanding"? Or is it an uncompleted flight into an airport. Mentally, I approach every landing made away from my runway of takeoff as an off-field landing, whether made at an airport or not....run through the same checklist w. the same rigor, etc. - - - - - - I have read a lot of club SOP's that recommend a "planned" outlanding into an airport as training for a real outlanding! Not the same thing. Is this a recipe for trouble? Not - IMHO - if done per above. True, paved-airport landings don't address the off-field surface issue(s), but I'm aware of at least one broken G-103 done at a non-home-airport landing...and LOTS of landing lights hit over the years. A paved-airport landing has all of the same OFL landing risks save two: 1) known good surface, and 2) generally decent approaches. - - - - - - A landing at a strange airfield is just that! Any resemblance to an 'outlanding' is nothing more than coincidental! If you are flying 'airfield' to 'airfield' you know that there is going to be a runway and decent approaches you dont have to worry about things like ........ Field selection, orientation, slope, surface type, crops and height of crop, livestock in the field and yes approaches. Also it may not be big enough so now what! Options and a 'plan B' Then there's post landing safety, what happens if you stuff it into an unseen obstruction in a remote field, will someone find you and/or the wreckage. Communications? There may be no one about for miles and the cell phone coverage could be lousy. Security, what happens to your ship when you walk out? How do you get the ship out? Access for car and trailer. Do the crew even know where you are? Your own well being? I have been in fields for up to 6 hours without a roll of toilet paper - no problem at an airfield but it nearly cost me a sectional Water? Shelter? What about protection for self and ship from the hail or electrical storm that was about to wash you out of the sky? Ok so a lot of this is not a problem in the UK where the nearest village is usually no more than a couple of miles away but in some places I have flown they are very real considerations. The pilot stress level are considerably more going into a 'field'! |
#4
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"Outlandings" discussion
Bob,
Personally, I call landing at any place other than home-base a landout, or off-field landing, or outlanding. It can be another airport, or a field. My post-flight and in-flight preparation is the same for all landings regardless of whether they are at home, or somewhere else. By the way, always make every landing an accuracy touchdown and accuracy stop. Years ago, an instructor told me to make my first landout at a familiar airport away from home. This would teach me many lessons. Today as an instructor, I advocate the same thing. If one chooses to do this, they will learn more than any classroom course can teach, and learn it safely. You should prepare for this by talking with positive and experienced members in your club. Fact is that someone is going to have to retrieve you. Enters a lesson: Buy them a nice steak dinner. Perhaps you will plan an aero retrieve, or automobile retrieve. Enters another lesson: Leave your car and trailer in combat readiness, for doing so will make you a more desirable member to retrieve. Bob wrote: Is this a recipe for trouble? No, with preparation and discussion, an intentional first landout is a safe maneuver. New pilots have a natural and understandable fear to try cross-country in a glider. Overcoming concerns of landing out is probably the biggest reason some pilots never leave gliding range from home. Practicing a landout under controlled conditions is superior to doing your first one unplanned. As advised to me, my first landout was intentional; I learned so many big lessons and little lissons (like making sure my cell phone battery was charged, that I had a few quarters for a pay phone, that I knew about landing lights, that Saturdays are better than Sundays, etc.). My second landout was every challenge imaginable all in one: rolling hills all around, fences, small field, horses, 105 degree dry outside air temperature, thermal on short-short final, downward sloping landing spot, only one head- size rock in the entire beautiful field (which I avoided by one foot) etc. Thank goodness I already had a practice landout under my belt. Raul Boerner DM |
#5
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"Outlandings" discussion
On Jan 27, 9:07 am, "
wrote: So, what do you call an outlanding? Whenever I have to start the motor ;-) ....Before which I've already planned an outlanding and started the pattern, just in case... See ya, Dave "YO electric" |
#6
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"Outlandings" discussion
nimbusgb wrote:
Some intervening questions/comments snipped... A landing at a strange airfield is just that! Any resemblance to an 'outlanding' is nothing more than coincidental! If you are flying 'airfield' to 'airfield' you know that there is going to be a runway and decent approaches you dont have to worry about things like ........ Field selection, orientation, slope, surface type, crops and height of crop, livestock in the field and yes approaches. Also it may not be big enough so now what! Options and a 'plan B' One's OFL options obviously vary by locale. The closest I've come to post-landing hypothermia was on a paved airport, in July, w. a dust-blowing wind at sunset. Rather than use my cockpit, an unlocked fuel truck was my chosen windbreak. No traffic (air or ground) at the field for hours...until the local constabulary arrived as my crew and I were struggling to remove wings in 35+ knot winds. (He didn't help.) My point was/is that - riskwise - landouts at airports - at least in the western U.S. - are really not very far from landouts in fields, and to assume otherwise is to blandly risk bitter disappointment, and perhaps an unnecessarily broken glider. For the record, the worst crosswind I've ever had to deal with was on a paved runway. Sometimes an OFL may be the discretion part of valor. We're in complete agreement that one should always have a Plan B (and C & D under development) until the final field is selected. - - - - - - Then there's post landing safety, what happens if you stuff it into an unseen obstruction in a remote field, will someone find you and/or the wreckage. Communications? There may be no one about for miles and the cell phone coverage could be lousy. Security, what happens to your ship when you walk out? How do you get the ship out? Access for car and trailer. Do the crew even know where you are? Your own well being? I have been in fields for up to 6 hours without a roll of toilet paper - no problem at an airfield but it nearly cost me a sectional Water? Shelter? What about protection for self and ship from the hail or electrical storm that was about to wash you out of the sky? Ok so a lot of this is not a problem in the UK where the nearest village is usually no more than a couple of miles away but in some places I have flown they are very real considerations. Indeed, such considerations are very real in much of the world where I regularly soar. That noted, I stand by my previous allegation(s). Maybe one day I'll even purchase a cell phone. I - rightly or wrongly - assume every glider pilot is prepared in some measure for post-landing ground conditions short of a life-threatening emergency. (I'd argue it's impossible to prepare for every emergency, and any approach reasonable to the PIC is fine w. me [and my wife]...even if it proves insufficient. No one forces us into our cockpits, after all. Further, most beginners aren't soaring during conditions conducive to routinely beyond-the-norm risk of life...at least not in my US-centric experience.) In any event, I suspect we agree the considerations you correctly mention are not really THE primary ones of any lowish-experience soaring pilot concerned about the mechanics of OFLs (in which way I took the OP's post). - - - - - - The pilot stress level are considerably more going into a 'field'! Maybe I'm abbie-normal, but I consider strange-airport landings not much less stressful than OFL's...and in (say) the agricultural bits of the Texas panhandle typically *more* so. In any event, I'm not a fan of suggesting to lowish-time OFL-wannabes that airport-landings can be approached with the same casual comfort factor their home-airport landings are. Just me, perhaps... Regards, Bob - unabashed (20 OFLs') weenie - W. |
#7
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"Outlandings" discussion
On Sun, 27 Jan 2008 06:07:16 -0800 (PST), "
wrote: So, what do you call an outlanding? If you land at an established airport/airfield is this an "Outlanding"? The Freanch have a precise definition of an outlanding: In French making an outlanding is called "aller aux vaches", "going to the cows". Since cows don't tend to on airfields... Bye Andreas |
#8
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"Outlandings" discussion
On Jan 27, 7:07*am, "
wrote: So, what do you call an outlanding? I log a "landout' any time I fail to land back at my point of takeoff, or at my goal on rare straight out flights. I log off airport landings separately as a subset of landouts. In my book every off airport landing is a landout but the converse is not true. I also keep track of landouts more than 50NM from point of departure. FAA seems to attach more value to those than completed flights and they saved me a bunch of money for my airplane commercial. More than once I have arrived at an airport and elected to land in an adjacent field because I thought it was safer. Andy |
#9
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"Outlandings" discussion
On Jan 27, 8:07*am, "
wrote: So, what do you call an outlanding? \ To me an outlanding is a landing where no one has landed an aircraft before. If it's an airport than it's not an off airport landing (which is what "outlanding" means to me). Landing at another airport is no big deal unless it's some rarely used dirt strip with no known characteristics or facilities and no sane pilot has landed there in years and years. We don't have many of those in my usual terratory, the midwest. Off airport landing causes the original Star Trek theme to start playing in my head on final approach, "to boldly go where no one has gone before". Once down it's up to me to make tie downs, determine location and access, and deal with onlookers and crew. It's an entirely different experience than landing at an airport. In training I consider landing away at another airport just about useless in preparing a student for "off airport" landing. Knowing it's an airport eliminates a lot of doubt and stress. Once a student lands at an unprepared field selected "on the fly" they know they are truly ready to take on the challenge of cross country soaring. MM |
#10
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"Outlandings" discussion
On Jan 27, 9:07 am, "
wrote: So, what do you call an outlanding? If you land at an established airport/airfield is this an "Outlanding"? Or is it an uncompleted flight into an airport. I have read a lot of club SOP's that recommend a "planned" outlanding into an airport as training for a real outlanding! Not the same thing. Is this a recipe for trouble? Now I know some of you fly where the only safe outlanding opertunities are established airfields, i.e. the western portion of the US, but for the rest of us these can be the choice of last resort. I I live and fly in Sourthern Germany where outlanding fields are numerous and in the Northern Alps the outlanding fields are identified and catalouged (http://www.streckenflug.at/index.php?p=w_inhalt). Bob Waiting on the wave! On a somewhat related note: the SSA contest application form asks how many outlandings the pilot has done. Is this asking for actual "non-airport" fields landed in, or airports other than the intended destination? I have to add that I know of several landouts by friends last year. The only two that resulted in damaged gliders were both at airports marked on the charts (one was being redeveloped for housing, and the other had not been mowed all summer). |
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