• LS1 landout at Metcalfe

LS1 landout at Metcalfe.

About a year ago I attended the Canadian Advanced Soaring cross-country clinic at SOSA where students are paired with a shepherd for afternoon flying and spend the mornings in briefings and reviewing the previous day’s experiences. We learned that a cross-country pilot should expect one or two outlandings each season. It soon became known that I had not yet made a single off-field landing and Jim Carpenter suggested that I force myself into Reid's Field, a small local strip that many SOSA pilots use when they don’t quite make it home, but seeing as I had already made two good approaches to the unfamiliar SOSA field, I didn’t see the point in making a landing that was predetermined to be a safe choice. My own apprehension was field selection from the air, judging the type of crop and it’s height, ensuring the field length, width, slope and obstacles.

The course over, I returned to Rideau Valley and ventured cross-country whenever I could, flying a little further most flights, provoked and motivated on the Interclub contest days even when conditions were weak or otherwise challenging. Beyond gliding range of the field, one is inclined to identify landing prospects as a matter of course, but I also realized that from good altitudes you spend as much time looking ahead as down because you probably won’t be anywhere near your present location when it’s time to land. And, as I was to discover, it is actually possible to select fields weeks in advance of use.

On a recent blue day I decided it was possible to make a return trip between the Rideau Valley and Pendleton airfields. I was probably somewhat influenced by John Firth who had announced the likelihood of making this journey in his RHJ-8 on the same day. The going was slow and it was faith rather than skill that my outstretched wings were able to stumble upon each thermal. Within reach of the Pendleton club, I made a radio call to the GGC towplane and sailed over their triangular field. Turning for home the conditions had weakened. Ottawa Terminal limited me to 4000ft and then lowered this to 3000 before I had cleared the forest near Limoges. I hit a good bump and asked them to reconsider a 4000ft limit but this was denied. Oh well, I had to keep moving and made my way towards the Embrun field which is about half-way home, but the climbs were fewer and weaker. Glancing at the glide computer, the news was neither good nor bad – I might make it home if I could just avoid any sink and catch a little rising air, but a strange patch of cirrus threw a narrow shadow directly in my path. Gliding into this dead air and now low, I noticed fields that had caught my attention on an earlier flight as being suitable for a landing – it appeared to be sod (turf) and there is no better surface. I hit a very small thermal that I hoped might carry me up 1000ft. While twisting madly in this bubble, Terminal called for a position report. I gave them my location and mentioned I was struggling at 1400ft. I left the thermal, immediately lost the 200ft that it had given me and proceeded overhead my chosen fields. “Land in the dirt and you won’t get hurt” the brown one called to me, but the green ones either side of it looked awfully inviting. They all seemed long enough, wide enough and flat enough. They were all free of obstructions but ultimately I decided that the dirt must be at ground level and so made it my primary choice and commenced my SWAFTS checks. On downwind I crossed a road and noticed that the power lines ended below me and did not continue to the edge of my field, so that simplified the final approach. There was little perceptible wind so the pattern was easy to fly. The only surprise was the sudden deceleration when I made contact. Oh no, how could I forget the gear? I hadn’t, but the dirt was dry peat and very soft, so the wheel sank a good deal and shortened the roll.

Breathing a sigh of relief on the ground, I tried to contact Terminal but could not reach them, so broadcast a message for any other station to relay that everything was fine. I hopped out of the aircraft and noticed that there were deep trenches separating each field and that the fields to my left and right were beautiful grass, perhaps even nicer than our home field. Walking several hundred meters back to the road I flagged down a car that eventually appeared, rode to the nearest house and made a call to the club. The homeowner drove me back to RVS where my trailer had been hitched to the car and five volunteers returned to collect the LS1 in case it had to be lifted over the locked field gate.

I was lucky that a nearby resident offered to pull the glider with his ATV and then hitched-up the trailer, bringing it through a small gap onto the bare sod field.

Everyone pitched in to help disassemble. I thanked the family that had given so much help and they were excited to have had an unexpected surprise in their day.

Finally home, after a round of beers at the Swan to thank my crew, there was a message from the Rescue Coordination Centre wanting to know if I was alright. Immediately returning their call to assure them that all was well, they notified the Griffin helicopter that had just been dispatched from CFB Trenton to search for me! Seems Terminal had not received the message that I was OK.

All things considered, my 1st landout was an encouraging and rewarding experience. My training aided the selection of a good landing site, strangers and club members willingly helped retrieve the pilot and the glider, and a rescue team came looking for a missing pilot (so please use the numbers below when you land-out). In fact I had such a great time that I made another out-landing the next Saturday!

By the way, John Firth did make the entire journey without the unscheduled stop.

Photos courtesy of Peter Hill.

Numbers to call after landing