Also like others have mentioned, better to walk to an intact plane than to have a smashed plane at your feet. lol

Originally Posted by Kahnx

In my skim reading, I'm surprised that no one has mentioned that you need to plan your landing before you consider taking off. You'll know the wind direction for take-off, so plan your final approach to be in the same direction (into wind). Take a look around the planned landing spot to note and recall which land-marks (and obstructions) you'll be looking for on the final approach.

This is good advice, but it's also a good idea to learn how to plan your landing
on the fly, because there are any number of reasons you may not be able to
land where you think you could before the flight, and you'll need to not panic
when those situations arise. Wind direction and strength could
change dramatically. Could run out of juice in the air, or face some other mechanical
failure and be forced into a more direct approach, or to land out, and so forth.

To give an example, I stopped at an overlook off interstate 70 in Utah. 150 foot cliff,
incredible view, great lighting. Set up my gear, put the goggles on and launched
over the cliff. As the plane left my hand, I heard a loud pop, and suddenly my
view through the goggles was shaking violently, until I chopped the throttle.
Pulled goggles off, and see plane is still flying fine, but is now descending below the rim
of the cliff. Quick jab of the throttle confirms broken prop so I'm not getting
it back. Plenty of flat spots below, but also plenty of large sharp rocks and deep
gullies. Put the goggles back on and glided safely down to perfect FPV landing
in a safe spot.

I also learned years ago flying slope planes in many interesting and challenging
places that obsessing about the landing before you launch can ruin the flight itself,
so these days I normally just check to see if there is some place that looks possible
to land (not faced with just a big pile of rocks everywhere), and go ahead
and launch, worrying about the landing later. Several times I've launched
FPV planes without a second thought to landing, because the potential for
an interesting flight and video, was higher than the risk of breaking the plane.
Do that enough, and stick to the fundamentals (downwind/base/final adjusting
each as necessary) and you can pretty much land anywhere.

ian

find a pole and put a flag on it to tell the wind dirrection

before and after you take off and land

take a peak at the flagging tape before landing to see which way the wind is comeing from

it is very important to realize the wind before landing because it can change

don't forget to remove your goggles and look at which way the wind is comeing from before landing