On Wednesday, August 9, 2017 at 11:21:16 PM UTC-5, Frank Whiteley wrote:
On Wednesday, August 9, 2017 at 5:07:34 PM UTC-6, wrote:
I'm a new glider pilot looking at purchasing a 1-26.

I'm looking at gaining the flights and experience to get the Commercial Glider and adding the CFI-G to my existing CFI-A.

I envision doing auto tows at my local 3200ft airport. I'll hopefully be getting to 600AGL to just do laps around the pattern. I'd plan to use a 1000ft rope and my 8.1L Chevy Suburban.

What's everyone's take on auto towing a 1-26 mostly just for the fun of very quick flights? Do I need a logbook endorcement for ground launching?

One of the Seymour 'boys' told me they used to auto tow there in a 1-26 and sometimes kite on the rope at the end of the runway for 'longer' flights when the wind was strong enough.

We did the kiting thing in a 2-33 at Caesar Creek once-upon-a-time. Mark Conner and Guy Byars were the instigators, I believe. Mark had a bucket of rope and a van. 1300' of rope IIRC. Mark's van had a tow release on a trailer tongue. The day I was present, it was blue cold and the wind was howling down the runway. The van would take off down the turf runway (2800') and get the glider airborne. At the end of the runway, the van would stop and we'd just hold the stick back in the glider and continue to climb until the rope back released. The wind was so strong that the glider would just kite on up until release. I remember lookng down and seeing the van stopped at the end of the runway, almost directly under us, and we were still climbing. At release, we'd make an immediate 360 turn. In the time it took to make that 360, we'd already be blown downwind of the landing spot. Seems like we got up to 900' or more on some of those kiting launches. Snow showers blowing through would sometimes make the top of the launch IFR. At one point one of the Maurer brothers reported 300 fpm up in one of the snow squalls. Good times!