Story of my first landout, since you asked.....
So, it was June 1979, I was flying out of Ephrata, Washington, in the Boeing Employee's Soaring Club (BESC) ratty old 1-26, "Thunder Chicken". I was attempting a 300k FAI Triangle (Ephrata/Waterville/Davenport/return), it would've been the first 300k
ever done in that 1-26. It was mid-week, with a good soaring forecast, and we took off work and school. My friend and fellow Boeing engineer/club member/partner in my SHK Steve Greene and my then-girlfriend/club member/UofW student and enthusiastic
glider pilot Karen Bethel were my crew. I took off first, and got out on course early, as you must if flying distance in a 1-26! Steve in the SHK and Karen solo in a club Blanik took off a little later, flying local and monitoring the radio while I
flew the task.
It was a great soaring day! Cloudbase 10,000 ft and not much wind. Strong lift, cloud streets lining up nicely with the courselines. Despite my inexperience and the 1-26 glide performance, I was making good time. Bagged the first turnpoint Waterville
on schedule, but then things got a bit rowdier. Well along the second leg, I was still on schedule to make the task, but then breakfast was revisited. Several times. ALL of breakfast! TRIED to find more breakfast, but it was all gone! You get the
picture....
10,000 ft under a great cloud, with clouds lined up nicely towards Davenport, about the middle of a great soaring day, hours of good lift remaining. And I pulled the spoilers, grrrrrrr. If you know Eastern Washington, there are great fields everywhere,
just pick one near a road and where the crop is fallow and the furrows line up with the wind, a great area for first landout.
A slight hitch appeared, but I had been well trained for this eventuality: I turned final and then could see that the field sloped off a bit to one side. No problem, just S turn a little and land in a banked turn with the wings parallel to the slope.
That I did, and it was a good landing. I was proud. Of course, after 5 minutes on the ground, the nausea was gone and I felt great!
I knew the road number that I landed near (not very many roads in Eastern Washington!), and I knew about how many miles I was along that road out of Waterville. I will just radio my crew, tell them where I am, and they'll come get me.... I'll be back
at Ephrata, in the shade and drinking a beer soon!
So I called Karen on the radio, told her I landed out and where I was. Come get me, honey!
A very assertive radio transmission followed: "Thunder Chicken, I am over the hills at 9000 ft climbing in 6 knots, I will come get you WHEN I AM DONE FLYING."
Yep, understood, with crystal clarity! Steve in the SHK was wisely silent. Hahahahaha
They left me baking in the Eastern Washington sun and looking at those beautiful clouds for quite a while.
At the end-of-season banquet that year, we all recounted our landout stories, and I got a lot of laughs, but Karen got a standing ovation! We who landed out each got a "Knights of the Open Field" award, proudly received. Landouts build character and
skills!
I love landout stories, I have a lot of them, and some of them are even TRUE.
Cheers,
Jim J6
On Tuesday, February 7, 2023 at 4:04:42 PM UTC-6, Dan Marotta wrote:
Great story, Jim! Tell us about that land out in the 1-26.
Dan
5J
On 2/7/23 13:17, J6 aka Airport Bum wrote:
Very cool video, Oscar! Here's my story:
So, it was 1966, a hot lazy summer day north of Canton, Ohio, and my 11-year-old self was laying in the grass on big hill in the cow pasture behind our house. Daydreaming and admiring the puffy clouds, you know. Suddenly I noticed a red and white
long-winged aircraft, circling overhead. Interesting, no engine, a glider! Then it got smaller and smaller, obviously gaining altitude.... Mind blown. How could this be? That evening, I excitedly told my dad about this (he soloed a Cub in the 30's, never
got his license though). He explained updrafts to me. Wow. He called a few friends, and found out that there was a glider club operating at nearby Martin Field, must be from there.
The next day I got permission to ride my bike to Martin Field, 3 miles or so, furthest from home I'd ever ridden at that time. Yep, gliders were flying there. The club was "Freedom's Soaring Thunderbirds", now called "Soaring Thunderbirds" and
currently operating out of Wadsworth Airport, west of Akron. The red and white glider was a K-8. I stayed all day watching, so long that I got in trouble because I got home so late.
The next weekend my dad took me over there, and they put me in the front seat of a Blanik (along with a load of lead) and I took a ride. Mind blown again.....
I immediately shifted my interest from slot cars to model airplanes, specifically RC gliders. Built a bunch of 'em. I read every single book on aviation that I could find in the Canton Public Library. I remember one in particular was about gliding
activity between WW I and WW II, complete with pictures, wish I could remember the name of the book. I would occasionally see a glider in the air, and would ride my bike over to Martin Field to watch them flying.
One weekend a year or so after my first sighting there was a WHOLE BUNCH of gliders flying - a contest! Amazing variety of gliders, but I was attracted to one in particular, it had a V tail and a beautiful streamlined nose, an SHK or SH-1. I remember
asking the pilot how it could be controlled with such a strange tail, and he showed and explained to me the mixing function, I was amazed. I am sure that his patient time with me was a seed of my fascination with the stability and control of aircraft,
which led to my wonderful 35 year career as an aeronautical engineer.
Haha, 12 or so years after meeting this guy, my first sailplane was - an SHK!
Anyway, the club moved to a different airport before I was old enough to start training, sigh. But I flew my RC gliders, never got that good at it but had lots of fun, even did some thermal soaring occasionally! And we vacationed on the Outer Banks
of NC, and I slope soared my RC gliders on Jockey's Ridge there. There I saw hang gliders (1972 or so, don't fly higher than you are willing to fall!) and caught the bug. I ordered a kit from Sky Sports, a LARK (Low Aspect Ratio Kite), a standard Rogallo
wing, and taught myself to fly it.
As a freshman at Purdue University's School of Aeronautical Engineering, I found out that a club called the Lafayette Soaring Society was operating east of the campus, I checked it out, they trained in a 2-22, and I joined up. Only took a few flights
though before I realized that schoolwork and girls (or, at least the efforts trying to meet them...) would not allow me the time (nor did I have the money) to learn to fly sailplanes just then. My instructor for those few flights was an Aerodynamics Grad
Student named Dan Somers, many of you know him now.
I reverted back to hang gliding through my college years. Numerous weekend trips to Indian Dunes, Michigan, when I could take time off from schoolwork. Some good flying, maybe more so some good partying on the beach, haha.
When I graduated in 1977, I got a job at Boeing in Seattle, and finally had the money to learn to fly sailplanes. Joined the Boeing Employee's Soaring Club, and got some GREAT training. British style operation, the core of club was a group of British
ex-pat aero engineers/glider pilots who came over in the '60's when the British aeronautic industry had some major cutbacks and Boeing was full bore designing the 727 and 737 etc. Passed my check ride 7 months after starting. Gained notoriety in the club
a year later by attempting a 300k FAI triangle in the club's ratty old 1-26 "Thunder Chicken". This flight ended in my first landout, in a fallow wheat field halfway along the second leg, because of - extreme airsickness! I was high and on schedule, the
clouds ahead looked great, but I just couldn't handle the dry heaves anymore.... I'll save this landout story for another time, or you can ask me about it, it's a good one! I defeated airsickness finally a few years later, I really had to force myself
sometimes to stick with it....
Gave up the hang gliding around 1981, to concentrate on sailplane flying. To this day, I miss the hang gliding, wish I had had the time and energy to do both.
Over the 46 years since I started, I have had to take a few long breaks from the sport, for career reasons, but I always came back. So I'm only around 2000 hours, but they have all been interesting.... I got all my Diamonds south of the Mason-Dixon
and east of the Mississippi. My 500k was an FAI triangle out of Peach State Gliderport, there were a half dozen of us flying it that day (separately, not together as a gaggle), the first time any 500k triangles were ever flown in Georgia I believe. Wave
flight over Mount Mitchell NC for my Diamond climb, took 4 years of trying for me to get that one.... At least 2 dozen off-airport landings (one was in my Mustang II homebuilt airplane, sure glad I had the glider experience, which made this one a whole
lot less stressful). I realized that my wife was the one for me when she arrived to retrieve me out of a cow pasture - with a big smile on her face, viewing it all as a great adventure! My first contest, Cordele in 1983, I landed out every single day,
haha (I wasn't the only one!). A fair amount of towing in our club's Pawnee, starting to pay back for the many tows that I have gratefully received. Nowadays I fly a few contests every year, but primarily I fly western mountain expeditions, out of remote
airfields with my self-launcher, the call of the mountains is very strong for me these days.
Thanks for this opportunity to share how I got into soaring.
Cheers,
Jim J6
On Sunday, February 5, 2023 at 7:27:46 AM UTC-6, Glider Pilot wrote:
Ever wondered what makes a soaring pilot?
For me it started when I was kid around 11-years old building balsa wood RC gliders. I was thinking it would be cool to return to my roots and build a retro kit today more than four decades later. He is my short video:
https://youtu.be/0rCN3jGQvyM
Oscar
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