At 22:39 11 February 2014, kirk.stant wrote:


Or, just teach the glider pilot to NEVER lose sight of the towplane, and
to=
immediately release if he does. =20
=20
Is it a matter of the FAA and insurance underwriters making any change
to=
the status quo cost-prohibitive? What sort of gauntlet does one need to
r=
un?

One of the never to be breached rules of aerotowing for a glider pilot in
the UK is "if at any time you loose sight of the tug for ANY reason you are
to pull the release"
If you read Chris's article carefully you may deduce that in the worst case
scenario, the rapid vertical departure of the glider, by the time the
glider pilot realises he has lost sight of the tug, and attempts to pull
the release it is already far to late to make any significant difference to
what is going to happen.

"Our first conclusion was that, in the event of this sequence occurring
accidentally as a result of an inadvertent pitch up by the glider pilot,
there was effectively no chance that either the glider pilot or tow-pilot
would recognise the problem and pull the release in the available time."

It was this very scenario that killed a very good friend of mine who was a
very experienced tug pilot. There are some events that, paradoxically,
require corrective action to commence before onset if they are to be
effective in time to change the outcome.

As for cheap solutions, I am firmly of the view that most wooden gliders
with only CoG hooks should not be aerotowed, those with compromise hooks
should be aerotowed with extreme care.