Cindy B,

Glad to hear from you...I figure you are the expert, having the most time in 182 towing! Overall the 182 is working out perfectly for us...we weighed all the pros and cons of various possible tow planes and came up with this.. We have relatively inexperienced tow pilots...and plan to train and add more.

Any additional tip or hints you can give us? We have electric flaps...a back window (useless) ....stock oil cooler...engine runs cool, even at 95 degrees outside, climb rate is about 500 fpm in the hot air...Now that the weather is cooler...700 fpm or better...

Is it worth taking out the rear seat, and the useless instruments (giant ADF etc.) to save weight? We have 81 gallon tanks...but fill to only about 35 gallons...

Glass gliders..speed is no problem...we all learned to tow on the fast side here. We feel speed = safety for tow pilot and glider. Our tow plots are getting slower with the Schweizers.

Our big Grob Twin Astir (1400 lbs+) tows just fine. We did a 50 mile x-c tow at 100 mph...easy...

Our 2-33 tows the worst...seems at higher speed the glider is way up on the drag curve.



Thanks for the info....yes we already figured out to use 10 degrees flaps. We use this for the entire tow....all types of gliders. Take off run shorter...Climb is slightly better than no flaps.

So just like our club...the opinions on RAS are sort of split..some "for" VG's some "against".

We don't have a "problem" with our set-up as we have it now. Just trying to make a good thing even better.

The club leaders are really cheap with the $$$ so VG's are probably not in the cards anyway. lol But we are a fairly wealthy club...so $1500 for VG's certainly is not a financial hardship in any way at all.


Cookie




On Saturday, November 10, 2018 at 2:23:33 AM UTC-5, CindyB wrote:
On Saturday, November 3, 2018 at 6:02:16 AM UTC-7, Cookie wrote:
Anybody have any experience and / or advice on putting vortex generators on our Cessna 182 (swept tail) tow plane? Do they actually do much? Or are they hocus-pocus?

We often tow with 15 to 20 knot, gusty, direct cross winds.



Whattadayathink??

Cookie


Cookie --

Towed with a C model for almost two decades, maybe 4000 hrs worth, at Cal City. Swept tail, no rear window, manual flaps, one big oil cooler. No VGs even though the maker of Sportsman STOL was based here. That IA signed off most of our inspections.

We found that if you really needed a little slower lift off, just add the first notch of flaps. Or for the 1-26s. It gave a bit better forward view.. That was certainly more thrifty than the VG kit.

It costs you nothing to try it for a while, then decide.

Best wishes,

Cindy B