On Tue, 12 Apr 2011 19:45:21 +0000, Walt Connelly wrote:

When I am the
wing runner, unless a pilot tells me he is taking off with partial
spoilers I try to insure that they are closed and that the tail dolly
is off among other things.

I agree that the tail dolly is easily spottable by wing runner, etc., but
this doesn't necessarily apply to airbrakes. If they are unlocked, on
many gliders they'll be flush with the wing surface so that neither wing
runner or tow pilot can tell whether they are locked or not and will suck
open during the launch.

In my club we use the CBSIFTCBE check where the Brakes item requires the
pilot to open the brakes fully, check for equal extension, do the same
for half brake, and then close and lock them. This, by itself, is a
pretty good assurance that they'll be locked but the pilot can still get
interrupted while he's doing checks and forget 'brakes', so this season
the winch cable hooker-onner has instructions not to put the cable on
unless the pilot explicitly says "Brakes locked: cable on, please" and to
prompt the pilot if he doesn't report brakes locked.

This procedure also makes sense for aero tow.


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martin@ | Martin Gregorie
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