Tom Rent  SGS 1-35C  Saturday August 14th
SYN-FBL-MCW (Mason City Iowa), landout near Fertile, IA.  Approx 160km, 100sm.

Description:

I declared a Diamond Distance 307 km task - SYN- FBL-MCW-SYN triangle with the theory that there were closer spaced airports
 and more cities to pop thermals along the I35 corridor.  Turns out this was smart as very few thermals were able to be found out over
 the dense crops and there were very few "open" fields to use for thermal sources, and less as I got further south.  Nearly all my climbs
 seemed to come over the cities.

I struggled a bit on my way south due to the early 4500' msl ceilings, but got to AEL by about 1:30pm, tanked up over AEL to
5500' msl and headed to MCW - 36 miles south.  About 1/2 way there I got low, picked a field 3sm east off course and expected to
land but it produced a SMA (Save My Ass) thermal and took me to 6000' msl cloudbase.  Turned at MCW at 5000' msl and aimed for a
line of clouds 5sm NW of MCW on the return, blue to the east.  Never found lift when I got to the line of clouds, arriving at
3500' msl (2200' agl).  Found a sand quarry east of Fertile IA which should have been cooking to deal me another SMA thermal;
it was the only non-crop feature for miles.  I hung out over it for 13 long minutes waiting for a decent pop, and visually
scouted landable fields within reach as I flew lazy circles in zero sink or less.  There was a nice 200 yard long cut grass
field 1 mile east as my potential "out"  but it was completely surrounded by woods and corn fields.  Well - the F'n sandpit
failed me so at 600' agl I headed east and put it down safely in the field I picked.  I relayed my condition by radio and by cell
phone, then I walked out through woods and corn to a dirt road.  I then walked 1/2m to a house and got a ride to a gas station
as the farmer and his wife were on their way to a wedding and weren't able to help much.  Turns out I landed on DNR property and
he did not know how I was gonna get my glider out as he thought only a tractor could get back there.  Ben Jeffrey and Laura
Hohanshelt came with my trailer arriving just after 6pm.  Long story short we hiked in, dragged the glider to the edge of the
corn with my land-out rope, disassembled the glider and rolled it out between the rows of corn - fuse on it's main wheel and wings
 on their dollies.

Carried the other parts out on our heads.  Took several trips through the dense corn but we got it done just at dusk and all
were pretty exhausted.  After we got over the fatigue, there was very good discussion on the ride back about the whole
adventure, too much to type here. We got back to SYN at 10:30pm and then went for beers (of course!). I'm sure there will be
much more shared about this flight/retrieve over the next year.  I was fortunate to have such good friends to come rescue me
 and I can't thank them enough. 

8/16 Follow-up:
===========
From: "Dan Shallbetter" 
To: "'Tom Rent'" <>
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2004 2:24 PM
Subject: RE: 300k?


> Tom,
>
> Wow!!, Thanks for sharing your story with me. Sounds like you had a few nail
> bitters. I'm impressed you made such good progress working under such a low
> base. I wonder how long it will be before we start to see more open fields?
> From your description of your field, I doubt I could have got down and
> stopped in 200 yards. The advantages of flaps.
>
>
> Dan
>
============
DAN- 

Yes - it is dicey this time of year.  The field I picked was as good as they come, though the recently cut grass was a bit deep
and it made the 200 yard pushback to the corn-line a REAL struggle. You can see the "depth" in the attached picture. Ben was
chief MULE with the rope around his belly, I pushed at the turtle deck, and Laura helped on the tip.  The deep grass was like
pushing it through sand - barely rolled.  Gear doors would have been a serious problem  We got the tire stuck in a small hole
and almost could not get it out.  We basically had to lift it out of this small hole.  The roll was so hard  going I was
thinking some long loose cut grass had wrapped around the axle but it hadn't - was just very "stiff" to push/pull, and my glider
is likely one of the easiest ones to push/pull.  It would have been impossible if there were furrows, a slope, or soft ground to
deal with.  As it was, we still had to stop about 6 times to take breaks.  That push/pull part was the hardest.  Once the glider
was disassembled at the corn-line, we could roll the fuse and wing dollies on the firm dirt between rows of corn, and it was not
so bad.

Interesting adventure.

See you whenever -

Tom