Ironically, I put myself in a very similar situation as Greg Jones on Sunday by pushing it too hard to do a low save near unfamiliar terrain. Here is the spellbinding video and a brief account.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCJAbvNGXSg[/youtube]
I launched from Blackhawk 30 minutes too early and was unable to work my way back up as I sank out. I lingered too long near the hillside and started to run out of landing options. There were Joshua trees and large rocks everywhere so the only remaining option was to pick a fire road and land on it. I did back-to-back 180 degree S-turns to set up my approach to land on a level portion of road. As I was mid-way through my second turn the wind switched to downhill and it pushed me down the road which has a 4-5 % down grade and is bordered by Joshua trees and a slope on each side.
On top of that, the 'corridor' gets narrower as you descend. So I'm skimming along in ground effect with a 6-8 mph tailwind and going down a fire road with a 20:1 slope on a glider with a 10:1 glide angle in zero VG. And I'm running out of room. I finally get low enough to drag a toe and so I prepare to run out the forthcoming landing. I do a partial flare and run about 4-5 steps before my right wing touches the embankment along the side of the road. The glider yaws and now I can't stop it so I pull my arms in and dive for the ground.
In all the excitement, I had neglected to raise my instrument pod. It got dragged through the small rocks on the road bed pretty good. My left leading edge struck something sharp and incurred a couple of 2" L-shaped tears. There was no damage at all to the leading edge tube. My Cinelli cork-ribbon handlebar tape got torn up a little and my left palm below the thumb has a black and blue mark from were I smacked the ground.
All the other pilots got 19 to 85 mile flights. I flew 18 minutes and went 3 miles. That's the price of being in too big a hurry to get airborne and for trying too hard to make a last-second low save.
A Hair Raising Fire Road Landing @ Blackhawk
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skygeek AKA Seabass
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Glad you are OK, Jonathan.
I have a question: Is that road running off to the right just before where you landed as clear (or not clear) as the one you landed on? It crosses a wash, so the other side of the wash should be up-hill, and somewhat cross-wind. (It is hard for me to see it clearly enough on the video to judge, even at 1080p).
This is not to carp on your decision. Once you were down low, you had to decide quickly, and as has been said - (I paraphrase): "A mediocre decision NOW is better than a great decision a few seconds too late." I can vouch for that one from personal experience. :-O
I'm only asking for the instructional value to others. Crosswind uphill is better than downhill upwind, usually, and always better than downwind downhill. Of course, it depents on how steep the hill, and how strong the wind.
Again, I'm glad you are OK. I've always hated Blackhawk for that exact reason. If you don't get up right away, it's no fun at all.
I have a question: Is that road running off to the right just before where you landed as clear (or not clear) as the one you landed on? It crosses a wash, so the other side of the wash should be up-hill, and somewhat cross-wind. (It is hard for me to see it clearly enough on the video to judge, even at 1080p).
This is not to carp on your decision. Once you were down low, you had to decide quickly, and as has been said - (I paraphrase): "A mediocre decision NOW is better than a great decision a few seconds too late." I can vouch for that one from personal experience. :-O
I'm only asking for the instructional value to others. Crosswind uphill is better than downhill upwind, usually, and always better than downwind downhill. Of course, it depents on how steep the hill, and how strong the wind.
Again, I'm glad you are OK. I've always hated Blackhawk for that exact reason. If you don't get up right away, it's no fun at all.
Fly High; Fly Far; Fly Safe -- George