Land Outs: They Happen
You’ve gone and done it. You’ve landed out. That eight hour day you had planned to dedicate to soaring just turned to 12 hours plus. You’re gonna get home at midnight tired, hungry, dirty, hot, and still disappointed in yourself. You ask yourself why you keep doing this, and what could possibly drive you to go out and do another day of it. Why is this fun again?
Well, I’ll tell you, some of my greatest adventures have been on land outs. I have met some lifelong friends and have stories that I will tell for the rest of my life as well too. With that being said, I will quickly tell my all-time favorite land out story:
Storytime
Some years ago, I was out cruising around New Mexico in my Discus. Flying with me was Jim Cummiford in his Ventus A. As in most land out stories, we were having a great day…Until we weren’t. As we sunk lower and lower, we realized that we were really in some “Tiger” country out by the Anton Chico VOR which is 87 some odd miles East of Albuquerque. We luckily found a couple of good fields to set down in and landed the gliders. Now, this is where the adventure begins!
Back in my day, son!
In the olden days, you had to go find a phone in order to call your crew, who also had to be sitting by a phone waiting on your possible call. This was the early 2000’s, and luckily we had some newfangled cell phones, which has been life-changing for glider retrieves as a whole. Also lucky for us, we also had a signal. The problem was, we had zero clue of a pinpoint location of our location except for a set of GPS coordinates. In those days, things were still a bit primitive, and once the GPS coordinates were relayed, they had to be plotted out on a map, or put into a program called “Mapquest” where you would print out your directions before you left. (Remember that?)
Supper out on the range
Once our coordinates were relayed, it was off on our own to scout out the area where we had landed as there is nothing else to do but wait. Jim and I happened upon a bunch of cowboys who were working cattle close to our location. We were quickly invited to dinner with them as they were cooking out on the range and planned to sleep out there that night. We were given some Pinion nuts that had been warmed over a fire to start out with, followed by some fresh “Rocky Mountain Oysters” that the cowboys had grilled up from that day's work. For those of you who don’t know, these are the leftovers from a day of castrating bull calves, and snatching these oysters off of them is what makes them steers. I was skeptical at first, however, adopting a “when in Rome” attitude quickly found them to be delicious, especially after a hard days “Work” in the glider cockpit.
Crews showed up
Sometime around 10:00 that night, our crews finally showed up, To my dismay, the people retrieving me had decided to drive their own vehicle, and not picked up the wing saddles for my glider which were in my truck, making it impossible to put the glider in the trailer. Using a bunch of rags and cushions, we were able to get the glider into the trailer, but it was impossible for it to travel without doing major damage to the glider. I also quickly discovered that my land out location was 30ish miles of dirt road and cattle paths to get to, and the condition of the roads made it a 3-4 hour drive AFTER you got off of the interstate. We dropped the glider trailer, and I finally returned to the airport sometime around 1:30 AM to retrieve my wing saddles. At this point, I turned around and started the drive solo BACK to my glider, installed the wing saddles, and finally arrived home with glider as the sun was cresting over the horizon.
This really is, what it’s all about
Now all this may sound miserable to you, but it is one of my fondest memories of soaring. I watched the most beautiful sunrise I could imagine driving home with the trailer that morning, dead tired and maybe slightly delirious. I will never forget the way the light bounced off of the New Mexico scrub brush, my windows down in the cool morning air thinking to myself “God, I love this sport”
Mitch Hudson has been avidly flying gliders since he was 14 years old. He is a retired Air Force Navigator who also has hobbies of exercising his ATP rating to fly regional jets around the country and using his A&P rating to keep all matter of flying machines in the air. Mitch has flown more regional and national soaring contests than he cares to count and has crewed at two World Gliding Championships. He and his wife live in Colorado, keep a hangar in Moriarty, New Mexico, and flies happily with whichever club will put up with him.