"309" wrote in message
ups.com...
On Oct 20, 9:45 am, "Bill Daniels" bildan@comcast-dot-net wrote:
I don't think any tow plane ever pays for itself once all 'hidden' costs
are
considered. Operating an old rag and tube airplane of any kind is
fraught
with 'nickel & dime' costs that add up. The last time I took a hard
look, a
Pawnee runs about $150 USD/hour. With rapidly escalating costs of fuel
and
insurance, it will probably be $200/hour by next summer. You don't
operate
small airplanes to make money, you do it because you either need to or
want
to. Tugs are cost centers not profit centers.

I think any club interested in lowering operating costs should be
investigating winches.

Bill Daniels

I forgot to add my "turbine tow would require winch launch
authorization" punch line. ;-) Thanks, Frank.

If somebody made a twin-turbine-taildragger tug, you could get the tow
pilots to PAY for that time (building time for th airlines...).
Turbine Beech-18 gets logged as Complex-Multi-Taildragger-Turbine-High
Performance time...worth $200.00 per hour for training to be a line
pilot. Yeah, I'd go back to the club and put up with the politics for
that!

Since AUTO fuel will quickly be over $4.00 per gallon (it already has
"traded" above that in Beverly Hills), the winches aren't going to be
a hell of a lot better -- if we must insist on suckering, er I mean
recruiting teenagers into our dying sport. (Flame away, guys...I'm
trying to get my kids interested -- _I_ have a hard time competing
with video games, even when I shut the power off).

I suspect we'll soon be back to hilltops and bungee cords... Quick,
we must assemble a protest march to SAVE TORREY PINES (Gliderport)!!!!

-Pete
#309
(I just donned my flame retardant suit).

P.S.: For the record, I agree with Bill -- EVERY "club" should have a
winch. And I think winch launches COULD compete with video games.


As frank pointed out, winches comsume very, very little energy. Roughly
1kW/Hr or a liter of diesel which could easily be biodiesel. An electric
winch, if it could be powered from the grid, would comsume less than 10
cents worth of power per launch.

Bill Daniels