On Jul 11, 8:11*pm, Tony V wrote:
On 7/11/2011 10:05 PM, Tony V wrote:

Students learn several very valuable things during a simulated rope break.
1. they have (at least) a 3 second "oh, ****", factor where they don't
do anything until the reality sets in. I had one student that froze and
did nothing at all.
2. they don't get the nose down fast enough, far enough - even after
they recognize and react to the situation.

Forgot point number 3. You can't just point the nose down and start your
turn back to the airport. You have to wait until you have enough
airspeed to pull that off. Something that gets drilled into every winch
student (I hope).

Tony

Actually a 200 foot AGL rope break on a winch is probably safer since
the landing will be straight ahead on the runway. There have been
accidents where aero tow trained pilots turned back from a 200 foot
winch rope break only to find no runway to land on. Of course, both
aero tow and winch recoveries from 200' rope breaks require a fairly
high level of stick and rudder skills.

Hint to students, if your instructor has his head stuck out of the
side window of a 2-33 looking back at the runway, he's probably doing
a 'sanity check' before pulling the release. Sanity checks are highly
recommenced as it's not always possible to return to the runway.

A bit of history; the 200' rope break turn back maneuver was invented
in the early 1960's to show aero tow operations from short runways
surrounded by trees or other unlandable terrain was 'safe'. Since one
can't know what runways a student will fly from in the future,
training them in this maneuver makes sense.