Tinny's comments are good but, just to clarify a point which I am sure he would echo ....
(a) engine failure, etc ... fine .. do the best you can in the circumstances
(b) a precautionary paddock landing is a whole different ballgame .. because it is an OPTION, not a NECESSITY.. in almost all cases there will be alternatives which the lawyers will investigate quite thoroughly at the Inquest ...
I have always had a very jaundiced view of the typical Instructor's poor knowledge of the associated problems, having been checked out as a tug pilot for paddock retrieves by a very old and canny ag pilot who knew about such things.
The one point I would add to Tinny's treatise is that the effect of sun, shadow, and ground texture etc can make the detection of wire hazards especially difficult.
On my checkout, the ag pilot took me to his favourite paddock for such things .. and asked something along the lines of "look OK, does it ?" .. to which I replied, after due consideration "sure does". He then suggested I fly a very wide circuit around the WHOLE of the intended paddock landing area (this was in the order of about half a mile at around 500 feet .. much higher than that and you can't see much anything at all. Flying along the OTHER side I nearly died of fright .... all the wires I COULD NOT see from the first side .. and they crisscrossed the paddock like you wouldn't believe .. were crystal clear from the other due to sun position etc. Of course, he had set me up to learn a valuable lesson which has never left my memory.
For me, if you haven't got half an hour or more to check out a paddock in thorough detail prior to throwing the bird into it .. then you are sticking your neck out so far that it is very likely to get the chop .... be careful there, people. And I might add that I did a lot of paddock retrieves .. never came to grief but, in spite of very very thorough checks, I frightened myself on more than one occasion when something not seen materialised during the landing roll.
Mind you .. there were some funny things happen when it came to pulling gliders out of paddocks ... but I digress .. as usual.
Hopefully, we can get some experienced ag guys and gals to offer more comments on these sorts of problems ... they are the experts on low level ops ..
Last edited by john_tullamarine; 6th Jun 2002 at 01:36.