While towing for Hollister, I noticed their instructor
really liked to practice slack line.

So for my flight review in Avenal yesterday, we did a bunch
of slack line corrections. We did them during one tow,
but broke the rope. 150' of rope ($12), two schweizer rings ($20),
one tost ring ($35), a carabiner (sp?), two half-wiffle balls,
and a short section of "weak link" then back-released from
the 2-33. It plumeted swiftly into a thankfully barren
plowed field below.

A few tows later, we mentioned to the tug pilot we were gonna
try slack line again. He wised up and took off the weak
link assembly ($68) leaving just wiffle and a $10 schweizer
ring.

After a dozen more slack rope practice tries, we broke
that rope. The ring and 10' of rope back released and
plumetted into another (thank god) barren field.

I'm sure some tractor pulling a tiller will grind some metal
at some point and we may get them back.

I thought about slack line. The real problem isn't
too much pulling, it's the "snappiness" with which the
slack line comes out.

It strikes me that on low tow, as slack line pulls out,
it allows a lot softer recovery. When slack comes out,
the tail of the towplane is pulled low, giving some
dampening. Next the towplane slows a little from the
drag, also good. On high tow, neither of these is true.

Sure, sure, I've read very careful use of spoilers and
yawing the sailplane away from the slack are tried and true
methods. However, even using these, there is still some point
there is so much slack you are going to break the
rope no matter what. A friend mentioned during his
first flight to try to get in wave, he with the experienced
instructor broke three ropes before succeeding.

My question is to those who have towed through rotor.
Have any of you tried low tow and high tow and would
care to tell us if you've found a difference in the
number of rope breaks?

How about the idea of towing low and to the left of the
tug? Ignore for the moment that it would annoy the tug
driver to do this on purpose (except maybe if torque
and p-factor now meant he could just leave the rudders
to flop about). Also ignore for the moment it is
drag inefficient. Would this reduce the possibility
of slack line and/or improve recovery chances even more?

How about other dangers? If the rope breaks on low
tow how would you feel about having it
fly over/around top of the wing/elevator/rudder?
Anyone have this happen?

I'm especially interested in the experiences of wave
pilots and those towing through super heavy thermals...
but armchair analysis is also invited :-]