Comments on: I like it flat

By: Wm Peterson

Wm Peterson — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 20:20:30 +0000

I am a Texan and went to college at the Univ. of Texas at El Paso. There were two fellows that came there from Pennsylvania. They rode out from Pennsylvania on the bus to El Paso and were awe struck at the distances between towns and even ranch houses. They said that the environment they were used to seeing in Pennsylvania was a house at least every mile. Unless you live in this kind of wide open country, you will probably be in for a shock of a walk if you have to make an emergency landing. Following a road might be better and even then you might have a wait.

By: Cary Alburn

Cary Alburn — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 23:22:31 +0000

Some 6 1/2 years ago, I had the distinct non-pleasure of losing my engine at a relatively low altitude, northeast of Fort Collins. My basic training from back in late 1972 kicked in, and the landing was a non-event, into a relatively flat pasture. $23,000 later, I had a new engine, and with a few thousand added on, a number of other improvements that were easier to do at the time than waiting until later. But the experience certainly made me more aware of the need for looking for suitable landing spots–and I do that much more than I did before the incident. Yes, there are many uncharted airstrips across the country, and many other suitable landing spots which may result in destroying the airplane but should result in minimizing injuries. But you have to look for them, and now I do, every flight.

When I fly through the nearby Rocky Mountains, the suitable sites are less obvious, but they are there, although certainly less obvious than a Kansas cornfield. I agree that altitude is your friend, especially when there are fewer obvious sites. But it’s a lot easier to pick a suitable site if you’ve been looking for it as you fly along, than to have to find it after something goes haywire.

Cary

By: Don Eck

Don Eck — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 15:45:54 +0000

An upside to regularly looking for suitable off-airport landing sites is that you will discover many non paved airstrips in the process, both charted and uncharted, private and public use. Many times over the years, I have seen a surface that looked good for an emergency or precautionary landing, only to then spot a windsock, hangar, aircraft, runway or wire markers,

Even with the precision of GPS, many non paved landing strips are difficult to locate visually, and even once the “airport” is acquired, determining exactly where the landing zone is requires evaluating what the best surface is for touchdown.

By: Hank

Hank — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 16:24:37 +0000

I learned to fly in Chesapeake, OH, just across the river from downtown Huntington, WV. Yes, the ground here is “lumpy-bumpy,” but there are many good emergency landing sites. Flying across boring flat spaces west of the Mississippi, there are many large windmill farms, and a close look often reveals the landscape is not actually flat, just very short rolling hills.

The lumpy terrain is much nicer to look at, and no, I am not a native to this area. From even a thousand feet in the air, the view of the hills and hollows is quite impressive, and gives you a much better appreciation of how the area was settled and built up, and why.

As always, altitude gives you more choices. Pick your cruising altitude wisely, and be careful of reported cloud bases as many airports are in smooth valleys surrounded by hills. I often trade a nice view for a longer glide to more options on cross-countries of an hour or more, and go as high as possible when crossing to the other side of the mountains [i.e., to Virginia or the Carolinas], often 7500 msl or higher.