There I was ... in the back seat of a Grob 103 holding on for the ride of my life. Four hundred feet off the runway descending sideways over the windsock... then the grass strip paralleling the runway... then the airport fence-line! and running out of runway fast. It isn’t supposed to happen this way!

A Routine Flight Begins It was a beautiful summer afternoon with no more than the usual mountainous breeze and cloud buildup. The weather showed a chance of scattered thunderstorms, but nothing out of the ordinary. I headed to the Russ McDonald Field in Heber, Utah in hopes of flying with my friend in his J3 Cub, but when I arrived, it was just coming in from an earlier flight - with an oil leak. An hour later we determined the source of the leak, fixed it and changed the oil. By that time, the next scheduled pilot had arrived and I was out of luck for a flight that day.

About that time an offer came my way from a glider pilot who had an empty backseat for a routine flight around the valley. Would I like to go? You bet!

My pilot, Paul, is a veteran aviator of 26 years with a number of ratings and a commercial glider rating. I had flown with him many times and was looking forward to another glider adventure with him in the Grob, one of our Utah Soaring Association (USA) club ships.

“Scratchy” but Uneventful In laymen’s terms it was a “scratchy” flight for the first 45 minutes or so. We released at 2500ft agl over the ridge and scratched around for lift, which was sporadic at best. Up 300ft, down 400ft... up 200ft, down 100ft... up 300ft, down 200 ft... was the general pattern. We were holding our own in and out of 9000ft msl.

The wind was strong but nothing more than we usually experience. We were keeping a close eye, however, on a storm to our south-west that had started to develop just before our lift off. It was a nasty, big storm covering the entire southern edge of the valley, but it was moving predominately north-east showing no signs of encroaching in our direction. These sorts of storms are common in the mountains where we fly. They occasionally move in to prevent or thwart flight, but more often than not they hover at one end of the valley or another.

We weren’t alone in our flight. The “Fire Carrot” (Soar Utah’s Schweitzer 2-33) buzzed us a couple of times. It was LeRoy Johnson, one of Soar Utah’s instructors, giving a ride. He wasn’t having much more luck than we were finding consistent lift. He headed in after about 30 minutes. We also were in radio contact with Corry Branham, a (USA) club member, who reported in at 12 000ft msl above us on the ridge. He too, headed in shortly after we heard from him.

The Fun Begins... “Want to take it for a while?” Paul asked.

“Sure” I said, straightening up in my seat. I scratched around for a few minutes but didn’t find much lift. I suggested that we, too, might start thinking about heading in. It was beginning to get really hot in the cockpit and we were close to our minimums at 7700ft anyway. We had been up about an hour and it seemed like it was going to be more of the same. All of a sudden I caught a thermal that pegged us up at 1000ft per minute! It was awesome - just the sort of thermal catch that keeps you flying when maybe you should be heading for the field. Up, up, up we went.

“We’re getting sucked up to heaven like a homesick angel,” I sung out with a big grin on my face. Making up titles for Willie Nelson tunes is a favorite back-seat pastime of mine.

“Let’s stay a little longer!” I squealed. “I want to see if I can get it up to ten grand!”

I blew through 10 000ft like it was absent from the altimeter and leveled off at 11 500 over the field. The storm was still holding off with little or no change than our last check - or so we thought. It was then that we got the call from Dave Robinson, the owner of Soar Utah.

“Hey Paul, the wind just shifted. We’re looking at one-two zero at 20 knots gusting to 22”.

“My airplane,” Paul said immediately. I relinquished the controls and instinctively cinched down my shoulder belts. That’s a perfect crosswind to our runway two-one, I thought, but said nothing.

“You might want to think about coming in on runway three to miss the hangar rotor on two-one,” Dave added. “And you might want to think about hanging out for awhile,” he continued with complete confidence in his advice.

Hang out for a while? I broke my silence. “This isn’t going to get any better”. I somehow found the words, realizing that even though the storm was holding off, it was probably to blame for the sudden shift in the wind and the rising air currents. “If anything, it could get a lot worse”.

Paul agreed, but put the glider in a crosswind mid-field position all the same. “Let’s just see what it looks like it’s going to do,” he said with complete confidence in his ability to make the right choice.

We had flown only a few minutes longer when we ran into the most violent turbulence I have ever experienced in my 12-year general aviation career. I was bouncing all over the place, glad that earlier I had cinched down my shoulder straps. The turbulence scared me, but Paul assured me that we were in no danger from the bumping around. At one point, descending out of 9000ft, he pushed the nose over to penetrate the wind shear produced by the convergence of two opposing air masses. We gained 500ft!

“Call it in,” Paul said in a matter-of-fact tone. “We’re going in on runway three”.

One for the Memory Books “Heber traffic, glider 46 yankee is 8500ft just off the end of runway three. Inbound”. I was nervous, but I don’t think my voice cracked. I took a deep breath to calm down and continued, “Heber Unicom, wind advisory”. I asked, already knowing the answer.

“Glider 46 yankee, wind is one, two zero at twenty gusting to twenty-two,” came a serious reply from the FBO. I got the feeling they were waiting and watching to see what we were going to do.

“Advise Unicom that we are going to fly upwind over the runway with a left turn out to set up a left pattern for runway three,” were my radio instructions from Paul.

I complied, surprised at my composure and started sizing up our situation. The wind was howling. I could see the windsock from our position and it was sticking straight out perpendicular to the runway. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen that in the eight years I have flown at that airport. I cinched down my belts again, but they were as tight as they would go. I tucked the microphone between my legs where I could find it if I needed to and started looking around the cockpit at what might fly around if we hit hard. I tucked everything away I could, water bottle, camera, and buttoned down every pocket that would snap. I checked my head surroundings, satisfied that I wouldn’t hit my head on anything. I was trying to figure out what to hold on to and how to brace myself when Paul made his left hand mid-field crosswind turn. In what seemed like a no more than a second he was turning downwind. We crabbed along the downwind leg nearly perpendicular to the runway. Neither one of us said a word. Paul concentrating on every move, nor me concentrating on supporting him and bracing myself for what promised to be a pretty hairy landing.

We turned base, then final, again almost perpendicular to the field. I caught myself starring at the altimeter -- 6000ft. Looking good, I thought. We are perfectly on course - only 400ft to go. Suddenly a violent gust of wind us left of the runway like we were a mere kite on a string.

“I’m going to put it down on the grass,” was Paul’s reply.

“OK. That looks good. Whatever you need to do. Go for it” I said, surprised again at my composure. We were fairly well lined up on the grass field that runs parallel to our asphalt strip, but from my vantage point, there was no way we were going to make it. Ten seconds had passed and we had cleared the windsock, but the gust was relentlessly pushing us off to the left. Now we were left of the grass field over the airport fence-line. OK, we’re going down on the road (that parallels the grass strip), I thought to myself, saying nothing. That’s OK, people make emergency landings on roads all the time. Oh no! Look at all those cars! In a split second I realized, perhaps the first time, why all of my previous instructors had discouraged choosing roads over fields for emergency landings. At that point, with my novice glider flying experience, I truly thought the wind had won, but Paul was about to prove me wrong.

What happened next was a series of events I can only describe as sheer brilliance on the part of my pilot. Saying nothing, and now less than 150ft off the ground, Paul turned the glider straight into the wind - perfectly perpendicular to the runway. We were heading straight for the hangars 200ft dead ahead. Our 30 knot forward motion put us back over the runway. In a flash, Paul kicked the rudder and dropped the upwind wing, turning us straight over the runway. A split second later we touched down, a bit harder than usual, but relatively straight. In another flash, he turned us back into the wind and on to Taxiway Alpha, the glider staging area. We stopped in a perfect position.

Our screams of delight releasing the incredible tension we had been under were apparently heard throughout the Wasatch Aero FBO and hand-held radios all over the field. In all the excitement, I didn’t realize I had jammed the mike button as I braced myself at the moment of touchdown.

Recovering In less than a second after we landed, Dave Robinson and his wife Lisa and a glider student pilot we didn’t know pulled up next to us in the Soar Utah golf cart. I was almost shocked to see them. I had been concentrating so hard on our situation that I realized, only then, that I was oblivious to what might be going on below us on the field. Dave said nothing, signaling us that either he thought that was one hell of a piece of flying, or he completely disagreed with our decision to land - or both! The student pilot looked as if he had seen a ghost - and maybe he had!

“Need some help with that?” the student pilot said pointing to the glider. Paul nodded. “Absolutely awesome piece of air work,” I said in a voice too loud, giving Paul a well-deserved hug. Dave hooked the glider up to the golf cart and we started towing the ship back to its ramp spot with Paul guiding one wing and the student pilot the other. Paul and I were silent except for an occasional nervous giggle and side-to-side head shaking indicating that the reality of what we had just done was beginning to sink in.

“That was some straight ‘shootin cowboy’!” shouted Scott Meehan, the manager of the Wasatch Aero FBO, as he passed by on his tug.

“You bet it was!” I shouted back smiling, still pumped from the experience.

Lessons Learned We hadn?t even finished tying down the Grob when we started debriefing what had happened, going over and over it for hours long after the flight. We debriefed with Dave as well, who finally revealed his thinking about the episode. In the end, we realized there were many lessons to be learned -- and shared -- from our experience. First, and foremost, we should have come down sooner. Twice, we went against our own instincts to head back to the field -- first when the other two gliders went in, and second when I pegged the glider at 1000? per minute completely out of the blue. That should have signaled us that things were changing in a big way. Even though we had been keeping a close watch on the storm, and it seemed not to be a threat to our flight, we totally underestimated the power of the wind to create a downwash that would adversely affect the airport 15-20 miles away! Never underestimate the power and unpredictability the wind. Second, regarding the landing itself, while at the time it seemed like the perfect landing, there were some things we could have done differently. In retrospect, we should have circled more upwind before setting up the crosswind pattern. Always take advantage of being upwind in a glider, especially in unusual weather conditions. We also should have extended our downwind leg to have more runway to work with. Always set up a pattern that will give you the most runway possible ahead of you. Third, regarding our decision to put it down, rather than to wait it out -- for our experience, on that particular day, with those specific conditions, Paul and I still agree that we (he) made the right decision to put it down. As it turned out, conditions did get worse and had we chosen to hang out we might have been looking at a much more serious situation that we were. A few days after the incident I asked Dave about his suggestion to hang out, which still seemed like strange advice to me. He told me that he had encountered our weather situation before and literally hung out at 10,000 feet waiting for the wind to settle down. His did, ours didn?t. What he had suggested did make sense once I understood it, but when it came right down to it, Paul, and Paul alone, was charged with assessing the situation and making the call. Size up the situation, make a decision, and stick to it. Fourth, looking back I am still amazed at my ability to stay calm, cool, and collected -- especially as an aviator-passenger not in control of my own fate. I have envisioned emergencies in flight many times, and, of course, have trained many hours for them as a pilot. But in the number of times I have taken flight with other pilots, I have given little thought to the fact that one day I might be a passenger in an emergency situation. Don?t underestimate your ability to calmly handle an emergency as a pilot or a passenger. And be prepared, no matter which seat you are in, for whatever might happen. Finally, be careful where you ?stick the mike? especially in an emergency situation -- or make sure you don?t stick the mike unless you want everyone to hear what you say (and wish you hadn?t said) after the excitement is all over! Final Thoughts If I had it to do it all over again, would I? Of course! And I already have! Regarding my pilot, would I ever fly with him again? In a heartbeat! You see, my pilot was none other than my own husband, Paul! ©2000 MotorGliding and Gliding International - All Rights Reserved