This is a post not in response to RM, but to everyone who is concerned about putting your glider into challenging LZs.
Yesterday, I landed 45 miles out from St. John, bombing out cause I didn’t go into scramble mode seriously enough when I got low. Below are some Google Earth shots of the LZ I landed in.
The first image shows the LZ looking east with Red Bank in the distance. Here’s a link to the image. For some reason, I can’t embed images in this post.
The Lzs in this area are oriented/elongated in an east/west direction. Normally, the surface wind will be south to southeast which sets you up for a cross wind landing. However, before I threw my streamer, the wind seemed to be blowing 90 degrees to the road, or straight across the elongated orientation.
To make my approach and landing even more interesting, even though I dropped my streamer well upwind of the road, it drifted clear across the LZ and into some trees. It did, however, catch in a branch and stick out in the wind so it showed me the direction briefly before getting rotored by other tree branches and leaves.
As I got lower and was about to have to execute my approach, the leaves on the trees did indeed show a due south wind, so it became clear that I would have to land going the short direction of the field. My final was going to be further abbreviated because there was a deep ditch cutting through the field that I had to fly over. But it turned out to be no big deal. There was enough room.
Here’s a link to a close up of my field with illustrations of the conditions.
The thing you have to keep in mind is if the wind is blowing due south, where you are going to be landing is going to most likely be in a wind shadow. This was the case with my landing. I felt the drop through the gradient and then a significant increase in ground speed as I came ground effecting into no wind landing conditions. As such, I had to flare hard and run hard. But it was no different than your typical, hot, light or no wind landing that you often have in the Sacramento Valley when flying from St. John.
Having finally landed in one of these improperly oriented fields between Lowrey and Red Bank, I have to say that it’s easier and more straight forward than it looks. What it comes down to is these fields are bigger than they look from the air. If I can do it in a rigid, with small flaps, no drag chute out and not even come close to overshooting, anyone flying this route should be able to have no problem.
– Andy
P. S. Wanna know the main reason I was relaxed on this seemingly tight approach and ready to flare and run? Funston. I’ve done so many, tight, low and hurried approaches and landings there in my rigid that doing one in this field felt pretty easy.
So if you are worried about being able to put your glider down in a small LZ when going XC (like I was not too long ago), get your butt down to Funston and do 50 top landings. It will totally change your confidence level.
Leave a Reply