Why You Should Be Prepared
If you are a glider pilot, X-C or not, you should know how to safely perform a field landing.
Although you may not deliberately set-off cross-country, an off-airport landing is always a possibility when flying a sailplane. When flying locally, unless you always fly directly over the airport, there is the potential for misjudging the wind, or encountering excessive sink, thus finding yourself too low and too far away to get back to the airport. Selecting a field and landing safely, while there is still plenty of altitude to do so is much safer than attempting to stretch a glide to the airport with marginal height.
Even if you don't stray very far from home there is the chance of a rain or snow shower engulfing the airport, reducing visibility to below minimum. Selecting a field in the clear, rather than risking a landing in hazardous conditions at the airport is a much better option. Be especially vigilant of snow showers, they can be treacherous, reducing visibility to near zero in less than a minute.
Many years ago we were selling our KA-6. A fellow showed up and said he was interested, could he fly it? We didn't see why not and gave him a tow. Just then a snow squall moved in. He disappeared and did not return. T his was somewhat disconcerting, this fellow whom we had never seen before had vanished with our glider. An hour or so latter we got a phone call. He had taken the proper course of action and landed safely in a field, in the clear 9 miles away.
CONTEMPLATING CROSS-COUNTRY?
There are many pilots who deprive themselves of the joys of cross-country soaring because of their anxiety regarding off-airport landings. This is needless and regrettable. Cross-country flying is really what soaring is all about. Of course, it is possible to venture away from home with minimal risk of landing out other than at an airport by using the method of "Airport hopping". Nonetheless, serious cross-country flying cannot be done without the occasional visit with a farmer.
LEVEL OF RISK DURING A FIELD LANDING
Unquestionably, landing in a farmer's field does entail a higher level of risk than landing at an airport, but with proper preparation it can be done with an acceptable level of risk.
PREPARATION
It's not possible to practice all the situations we may encounter on our field landings, but we can envision a lot of the problems we may be faced with, and in our mind work out how we would deal with them. This is a very useful exercise and I strongly recommend it. Also, read all available material on the subject. Learning from other peoples experience is a lot less trouble than learning from your own.
Fortunately, some of the flying skills and judgment needed for safety in out-landings can be practiced right at your home base. Take full advantage of those opportunities - be prepared and stay safe. (See Practice)
SPIN PROFICIENCY
When the work load is at an unaccustomed high level, such as during an off-airport landing, that is the time you are most at risk of an inadvertent spin entry. You cannot afford to be ill prepared, recognition and correct control input must be intuitive. If you have to think about it, you will run out of time, recovery has to be intuitive.
Thorough spin training should be mandatory for all glider pilots, but to make the correct recovery procedure intuitive, spinning need to be practiced at regular intervals.
To be meaningful it is imperative that the training is done in a sailplane with similar spin characteristics as the sailplane you normally fly.
Spin training in a glider resistant to spinning, such as a Schweizer 2-33, is completely counter productive as it will only serve to demonstrate that spins are nothing to worry about. Gross miss application of controls will only result in a half hearted spin entry from which automatic recovery is instantaneous, regardless of control input. This sort of demonstration will lull the student into a state of complacency regarding spins, and leave him/her totally unprepared for the real thing. I do not know of any single-seat glider that will not enter a spin inadvertently, given the right conditions.
A significant portion of spin-ins occur during off-airport landings when a high work load diverts attention away from the task of flying the glider. No doubt many of those spin-ins are attributable to insufficient exposure to spins. Very few pilots recover from low level spins. So, practice, practice, practice - don't become another statistic.
THINKING AHEAD
Your mind must always be ahead of the sailplane, e.g. "If the present course is maintained and the present conditions (sink rate, ground speed, etc.,) persist, where will I be, one, two, and ten minutes from now?" Unless conditions are 100% reliable, be sure a safe place to land is with reach.
Always remember you fly a glider with your head, not your hands. Never let the glider take you somewhere your brain didn't get to five minutes earlier.
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