Video of midair with tow rope

Michael Ash wrote:
hard to see things. What I don't understand is that even when the tow
plane went right in front of him, he did almost nothing. From the video it
seems there was at least a full second from when the tow plane came on
camera to when impact occurred.

Fairly typical reaction time. Within that second things like

"What the hell was that"
"Ok, it was a plane"
"****, that was a plane, and it had a cable behind it"
"Bugger, now what"
"Ok, probably should try and do something to avoid the cable"
"Up, or down"
"That cable probably had a glider on the other end, if I go down that
could be worse"
"Up"
"Ok arm, pull back on that there sticky thing"

are going through his head. It will take a surprisingly long time to
react to a situation like that, you have to examine the situation,
think of a plan, and implement that plan, a second is probably pretty
good.