I've used the tail waggle to slow a tuggie down when
my glider was shaking due to excessive tow speed.
He was leveling off under a cloud layer and he had
sped up considerably. I was not wanting to release,
as I was not within safe glide. So yes, in a sense,
this was an emergency procedure signal from glider
to towplane that worked.

For those who are talking about takeoff, sure, I don't
see there is a lot of time to signal 'too slow' or
desire to do so for aerodynamic reasons.

As far as other glider to towplane emerg signals, maybe
glider can't release is important (although one can
usually break the rope, unless wrapped around an ailoron,
etc.).

As far as mandatory radios, I'm why this would make
a critical difference, except to have someone keying
a radio when they should really be focused on the release
knob. Maybe keying the mike and saying 'speed up'
works 100 times. Then the 101st time the tuggie is
oblivious, or can do nothing about it (ran out of gas)
and the glider pilot has wasted 2-5 seconds instead
of releasing, stalls, and dmages the glider or hurts
himself.

I'm willing to bet that if you ask pilots who damaged
a ballasted glider on takeoff, many keyed the mike
right before the stall...
and were in disbelief that the tuggie didn't do what
he was told.

I've aborted launches twice due to tuggie issues.
No radio either time. And no raised fingers from me.
I suppose both were emergency PTTs. But if there
is anything 'wierd' going on, release immediately and
I'm on my own...

I'd definitely prefer a chat with the tuggie before
launch and then no radio, to no chat and then a conversation
on the radio DURING a launch emergency.

At 14:30 23 March 2005, Mike The Strike wrote:
Let me try again - for some reason the Google version
got my post out
of order.

Here's the main thrust of my post - has any glider
pilot ever
successfully used the wing rock signal to speed up
a towplane that was
flying dangerously slowly?

Is this a signal that has migrated from winch launching
and is it
useful?

Mike


Mark J. Boyd