Went into a farmer's field today, not particularly short, 4-500 metres, ruts along it, much easier to land with the ruts, about 8 inches of quite thick grass / clover, no wind indication, but all went OK.
Got out fine too, two up with near full fuel and usual junk in the back, loads of room to spare, even with a slight uphill gradient (Super Cub 150 -- fantastic machine).
Came back 3 hours later... wind had definitely shifted, but hard to tell just what it was doing, looked more or less across the field according to a fire about 2 miles away, elected to land in the same direction, but came in too high, too fast, touched down long with quartering tailwind, stopped by the long grass and the slight up gradient with, well, enough room to spare, but not masses. Heart rate only 100, so things could have been worse, but I did have to go through the 'Is it going to land? Is it going to stop? If we do hit the hedge will it be a total write-off?' thought process. Not pleasant.
Two morals, totally obvious, but they were reinforced to me today and some might like to share them with me:
1. Don't try and rescue a crappy approach to an unfamiliar field in stressful circumstances. Go around.
2. If a go around isn't possible at that field and you're feeling a bit dodgy about it, don't go in in the first place!
We live (hopefully) and we learn. I'm still kicking myself for such idiocy, though. Pathetic.
QDM