Today, I landed a plane in a field. Because I can. *smug*
This morning's flying lesson was on precautionary search and landing. Basically if you need to land in a hurry (ie medical emergency, low fuel, problem with plane, poor visibility etc.) this is what you do. You pick a field, fly over at 500 feet, fly over at 200 feet, fly over at 50 feet, and land. (The fly-overs are so you can get a better look at the field and check for obstacles, ditches, trees, powerlines, livestock etc. before you're committed to actually landing in it.)
So Ross demonstrated one first, narrating as we went around and around and around. There were tall trees quite close on both sides of the strip which were a little intimidating since your instincts scream Stay Away From The Smashy Things. He only did two passes and then did a go-around without actually landing as we were somewhat short on time. Then he pointed out another field for me to try it in.
The field had a narrow dirt strip on it and a wind sock, so I guessed that they use it for this quite often. Even having realised that, it was still a little unnerving knowing that I was going to land there as it was a fairly narrow field with trees on one side of the strip and s lake/dam on the other. And that was mostly surrounded by bushland and a huge pine plantation, so flying around it at low level meant plenty of bumps and sink.
I wasn't sure whether Ross would let me land on my first try - he said "we'll see how it goes", so when I got set up on final and was half expecting to go-around and he said "ok let's land it now", I had a lovely rush of adrenaline and was all *happy*!
I put the plane down nice and gently and kept the nose right up so we wouldn't get bogged. Ross taxied us around and back to the end of the field so I could takeoff again, after which he informed me that I'd done a nice soft-field takeoff - which was awesome since he hadn't actually told me how to do that and I was just doing what seemed to be common sense. :D
So yes, today I landed in a field. For next time, Ross mentioned he's going to have me land in a paddock! Eep!!!