Originally Posted by
Step Turn
And it's worth remembering that if you really did get the speed wrong for your selected landing spot, you'd rather cross the near fence too fast, and not be able to stop for the far one, than to not make it over the near one, and crash into something at speed, without the opportunity to get the plane on the ground, and slow down for a while.
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This is IMO an extremely important point and is the reason why it will always be better to chose the crappy field that is close rather than try to stretch the glide to try to make the "nice" field.
When it suddenly goes quiet, decisions must be made with little head scratching - 'cause your thinking, planning skill and experience have covered most of the factors
The challenge for new pilots is they won't have the experience part of the "thinking,planning skill and experience" trifecta. So for those pilots having a plan is vital as the lack of experience makes it harder to react to a fast developing situation by using the knowledge gained from seeing similar events in the past.