On Tuesday, February 11, 2014 6:26:21 PM UTC-6, son_of_flubber wrote:

http://i.imgur.com/wPwWj.gif

Cute!

Seriously, the biggest problem is probably just plain cost. Everybody knows the Schweizer tow releases are junk and dangerous - but (like the Schweizer gliders) they are cheap and available. So we use them. There is a much better and safer replacement - the Tost - but it cost so much that when you try to get a club interested in replacing their Schweizer hooks with Tost hooks you get laughed out of the club house.

So for now we are stuck with solving (a real but fortunately rare) the problem with better awareness of what can happen (by both the tugger and tuggee) and better training.

Now, if anybody has any spare explosive bolts laying around, we could probably come up with some kind of emergency release that the tow pilot could activate under any condition...(just don't let your local FAA guy see it).

Cheers,

Kirk
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