On Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:46:32 -0700, akiley wrote:

Say the left wing starts to drop,
but you are also starting to get to the right of the tow plane.

IME that's pretty unlikely. If there's little wind or crosswind and you
drift right, the towplane's prop blast is going to tend to lift the left
wing, so you're more likely to end up right wing low.

The only case I can see where you'd end up to the right of the tug with
left wing low would be with a strong cross wind from the right - strong
enough to drive the wing down through the prop blast, in which case
you'll be tending to weathercock further right. The left rudder needed to
counter that will tend to pick up the left wing as a side effect.

WRT your priorities: I normally fly off wide, grass runways, so keeping
the tips off the floor can take priority assuming I'm not too far off tug
centre. However, I've also flown in parts of the US where the norm seemed
to be a hard runway about twice the width of a Pawnee's wheel track. In
those conditions my priority would be staying on the runway.

In any case, standard doctrine in my club is that you release as soon as
the tip hits the floor, regardless of launch method.

Disclaimer: I normally winch and I fly a Libelle, not a Cirrus, so take
this with a grain of salt, apart the bit about from being ready to
release instantly.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |