wrote:
Not this again. JS is spreading the LOT disease to Vegas! Bad Jim!

I suppose this is why he bought the glider with the noisy bit so he
avoids such DANGEROUS procedures as aero tow altogether. Thank God
you are SAFE now!

As with JS, I am amazed (but probably shouldn't be) at how many folks
categorically state that LOT's are dangerous - having never
experienced them. If these same people had never done a standard aero
tow, they would probably be exclaiming how dangerous that was. Maybe
if the "It's dangerous" types think of LOT's as a normal tow in the
negative direction you can get past the baseless fears.

Have done dozens and dozens of these with pre-solo kids, pre-solo old
folks, high time test pilots, and and everything in between, no one
felt threatened. It was part of the pre-solo syllabus when I first
started working at Skylark in the early 90's. In all that time I
observed only 1 "blown" landing that required a release due to the
USAF test pilot forgetting the briefing (which he gave) and began
manipulating the spoilers on final.

There is no need to go into low tow or for the glider pilot to do much
of anything unusual. Deploy full air brakes (no wheel brake), sit in
high tow, and let the tuggie set up a 5 kt down, 60-65 kt pattern
speed (Pawnee). Flair and land when it looks right. Use the wheel
brake only to keep the rope taught.

Or Not. I understand that being wrapped in cotton balls and standing
in the closet is pretty safe.



The point was that it is unnecessary since it is an extremely unlikely
event. Balanced against that, it is completely unnecessary to train this
on a regular basis. There are other more important things to train, I
mentioned rope brakes and power loss on the tug as two good examples. I
think we can come up with a bunch of more useful things that spends the
money more wisely.

This is the type of emergency procedure that you can learn theoretically
and bring forward when necessary.

I don't fly around doing outlandnings for training purposes either, not
because it is dangerous or unsafe, but because most outlandnings poses a
small risk of damaging the glider. It might be as simple as a small
hidden rock in the grass that knocks a big dent in your fuselage. Or
similar.

Not dangerous at all, but completely unnecessary. For it to be worth the
risk I want a real reason, like the familiar "didn't find enough lift"

People claim that this is done in Europe on a regular basis, in which
country/countries may I ask ?

/AndersP