ORIGINAL: Charlie P.
All you can hope to do is bleed off as much airspeed as possible and fly it until it stops. That is, you're running out of airspeed and altitude so you have to keep the ideas coming. You seem to be obsessed with this grass field, and it may be that you are focusing on that and not other alternatives. Seriously, think outside the grass field.
Lol... it's a square shaped field, so you are telling me to think outside the box...
ORIGINAL: Charlie P.
The tall grass will tend to flip you, so give full up elevator at the moment of "impact". For a light wing loaded plane try to stall it just as the weeds grab it. Bring it in as shallow as possible and ride the elevator as long as you can stretch it.
Yeah my Funtana "floats" in. My problem is that when it plane crests the edge of the field I have NO VIEW of it, so I just hold up elevator, tying to maintain the same glide slope.
If I could see it, I could do exactly as you've stated and let it stall just over the grass, and LET it flip over, which would not rip out the gear.
ORIGINAL: Charlie P.
"Crabbing" is a good trick, too (side-slipping, as mentioned earlier). Give it rudder and correct with opposite aileron to keep her level. This is very hard to judge and do unless the model is coming at you or going away from you (at least for me). It brings you in steeper from the added drags on the control surfaces.
Hmmm... I wonder if this may slow it down enough to avoid gear damage. A little less forward velocity is all that I need.
ORIGINAL: Charlie P.
Practice dead sticks in ideal conditions. Kill the throttle when lined up but high at the end of the runway and use a little rudder to spiral gently down, then bring her in. Only way to learn how your plane handles without power is to fly it without power.
At this point I'm a dead stick "expert".
Last week I deadsticked an Ultimate w/o Aileron controls as well from quite a distance out.
My only problem is that adjacent field that I cannot see into which is why I obsess over it.
Once a plane disappears I'm literally flying blind.