Glider Landing in Tall Wheat Field

This video was taken on day 5 of the 2011 15-meter Nationals out of Logan, Utah. After a tough day getting around the course I took a big gamble and went way deep into the second to last turn cylinder to a very good looking cloud. It paid off with a huge thermal that took me to cloud base. That is the beginning of this video with me giggling in delight. One problem, the day had died (I didn't know this) and I still had 91 miles to make it home...

This video shows pilot Bruno Vassel IV - B4 flying a highly modified ASW20B in the final 10 minutes trying to find lift over a small ridge and getting forced out into the valley because of sinking off the ridge. I spend a good amount of time circling low trying to decide on the field and then landing.

PLEASE READ: Why did I pick the wheat field instead of the plowed field? The plowed field was freshly plowed within the last few days. The furrows were deep and also running the opposite direction from how I wanted to land - up hill. You can also see that there is a large depression running in the middle of the field effectively cutting it in half. It was also much more angled than the wheat field. The only gate I could see from the air was on the corner of the wheat field where I came to a stop within 30 feet. The biggest reason why I picked the wheat field is that I thought I saw the crop was not as tall but we all then saw that was wrong. OK, lesson learned you can not judge crop height in the air other than by color. Glad everything worked out and the glider stayed going straight on landing. Hope you enjoyed and please don't flame me too bad for choosing the tall field, at least I shared the video with you. :)

My Spot GPS tracker device I wear (orange box on chest) helps me to be tracked by friends and family in real time. You can go to my tracking page by going to http://tinyurl.com/BrunosSpot Thanks for watching! :) Bruno

Видео Glider Landing in Tall Wheat Field канала Bruno Vassel