Don't wait until the last minute to set up your approach!

[stebbins]

Some of you may know that I injured my knee a few weeks ago during the Florida Ridge Nationals. This injury caused me to take a "minimum-distance" one day, and bail on another. It also caused me to leave the Flytec Championships after 1 flight. And yes, I missed the epic day, where 93% of the pilots made goal 127 miles away. Rats!

Here's what happened.

It was a weak day. I was doing well, and staying ahead of many pilots. Many were on the ground, and everyone was going slowly. I managed to get an extremely weak thermal with Kevin Carter and another pilot at 1200' AGL. We hung on to it for 20 minutes, getting drifted off course-line and not getting any higher. But we were still in the air. Then we spotted some birds. We each went to our own group of them, and hung on. Eventually, we got lower and lower, finally having do decide about landing.

Ignoring the other two pilots, I went on course, where there were no LZs and then turned back to get the last landable field. The scoring counted your farthest position, not where you landed, so this seemed like a good idea. I set up my approach into the field into a 15mph + headwind. As I entered the field the wind dropped to nothing, and I over-shot the "clearing" in the field, which was intended to be my spot. I landed a short distance into the high grass, with no wind, or perhaps a very very slight tailwind. My feet tangled in the grass, or on a root and I tripped. Not a big deal, right? I was in the process of flaring, so it wasn't much of a whack. Unfortunately, hidden in the grass was a tree-stump. The edge of the tree-stump impacted my knee. It hurt like hell for a few seconds, then was just sore. I thought I'd just get a bruise and all would be well. After hobbling out of the field with my gear and getting picked up, my knee had swollen up quite a bit. "OK, maybe it will need ice", I thought.

I flew with the injury for a couple of days, but it got worse. So I took my minimum distance one day, and blew off the flight another. It seemed to be getting better. Then when I got to the Flytec meet, I flew one day. After flying, my entire leg was purple from bruising and blood leakage. So I went to the doctor. "Whatever you are doing, you need to stop doing it, and STAY OFF THE LEG" I was told. "You are still bleeding inside." Sigh. Discretion being the better part of valor, I withdrew from the Flytec meet and went home. My knee is still swollen to a very large size, two weeks later.

Lessons learned?

1) Pushing to get a few extra points at the expense of the extra 10 seconds needed to assess a field isn't worth it. Yes, I got 5th for the day instead of 8th. But it was only a few points, and it cost me far more by missing the other days.
2) When landing in high grass, make sure you stay above the grass until you flare.
3) Don't do the moon-walk landing in high grass.
4) Look at other options. It turns out there was a very very wide dirt road right next to my field, and I could easily have landed on it. There was plenty of room, no cars, and it was going the same direction that I landed in.
5) Even minor injuries should be treated carefully. I suspect that if I had iced my knee and stayed off of it for a couple of days, I'd have been ok by the Flytec Championship. I got greedy, and it cost me.
6) As I have said before, being able to land out in a field you have never seen is the most important XC skill. I got greedy and neglected to use my full attention.
7) If you ever get large bruising, DON'T use aspirin. It thins your blood, and might make the bleeding worse.

By the way, to those who think that when you are on approach you don't need to increase your airspeed when there is stronger wind: If I had come into that LZ at a "normal" airspeed, I'd have dropped out of the sky and gotten seriously injured or killed. A sudden drop of 15mph in airspeed at 30-40 feet can be fatal.

See: http://www.shga.com/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=646