Marc Ramsey wrote:

That left 9 in which a glider high and out of position pulled up the
tail of the towplane causing it to crash. Of these, 3 very likely had
CG hooks (Std Cirrus, Open Cirrus, Ka-6E), 2 likely had nose hooks
(G103C and 1-26), and the remainder either the glider type was not
stated, or may have had either type of hook (Twin Astir).

Very interesting numbers. Too bad we don't know what proportion of
launches are nose-hook or CG hook, then we could see if one was
over-represented.

The thing that struck me about these accidents was how many of them were
due to the pilot fiddling with an open canopy, or inadvertently deployed
spoilers. If the pilots simply payed attention to flying the aircraft,
most of the above would never have happened. The other thing that is
clear is that those freakin' Schweizer towplane hooks are a menace to
tow pilots, and *should* be banned.

Amen.

These statistics don't suggest to me that we should prohibit aerotow of
CG hook only gliders in the US. A significant proportion of the single
seat gliders here only have CG hooks, as some of the European
manufacturers charged a fairly hefty premium to put in a nose hook until
recently (if they offered them at all), and, well, a lot of glider
pilots are kind of cheap.

The US might have less trouble with CG hooks than a country where aero
tow isn't as common.

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Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA