On Dec 31, 4:40*am, "Doug" wrote:

Is poor handling at low speed on tow a common experience?

Well not for me, but only because I don't often get towed slow. For
my ballasted ASW-28, 65kts indicated in the glider is as slow as I'd
like to be. On the few tows that the speed has dropped to 60kts it's
barely possible to stay in control in any sort of turbulence. Both
pitch and roll control are greatly reduced, I never noticed a problem
with yaw control.

Slow tows only seem to be a problem for me when I go to an site that
uses tow pilots that have no high performance glider experience but
they still know better than the glider pilot what speeds are needed.
Fortunately there are not too many of those.

The worse possible case is the tow pilot that refuses to follow the
simple instruction to stay in ground effect until a safe tow speed is
reached.

Some glider pilots don't realize how hopelessly inaccurate the tug
airspeed indicator may be on tow and they ask for the speed they'd
like to see in the glider. Bad idea. Far better to ask for a speed x
kts or mph higher than they use for the gliders they tow everyday.

Andy