Standardization in Slack Rope Recovery?

On Saturday, February 6, 2016 at 11:57:42 AM UTC-5, John Cochrane wrote:
I once took a very instructive BFR with Marty Eiler at Cal City. Needless to say, with lots of wave/rotor flying, Marty had plenty of experience in what actually works in real slack rope situations. He chuckled at the yaw the nose at the last moment stuff, encouraging me to try it and see how it made matters worse.

His technique is to stay a bit off to one side, high if possible, and make sure the glider is banked toward to towplane with nose low and pointing towards the towplane as the slack comes out.

The key is to avoid a kiting attitutde. This makes absolute sense. Think about rope coming taut with the glider nose up and banked away in a kite attitude, vs. nose down and banked toward the tug. The kite is going to be a lot rougher.

When the rope pulls the glider, you don't want that to raise the glider's angle of attack, so the lift force fights the rope. Ideally, the rope pull should lower the glider's angle of attack, and the lift force should be somewhat in the direction of the rope. The key point is the glider's attitude when rope comes out, not relative motion.

The yaw at the last minute idea, beyond being very hard to do (especially bouncing around in rotor), will typically leave the glider slightly banked away from the towplane, unless you're very very good and also banking the other way at the same time. It also points the glider away from the tug. Trying to speed up at the last minute means you get lower and lower. Any amount of last minute maneuvering is going to be very hard to do in the real situation of extreme turbulence. Holding a good attitude is easier.

After a lot of subsequent experimentation I haven't found a better technique, at least one that I can perform reliably.

John Cochrane BB

I don't believe any of us said to, "yaw the nose at the last moment".

It's more of, "Get the nose started to the side (using rudder)" so you:
-avoid the loop
-slow the glider
-sorta maintain relative altitude to the towplane
-maintain sight of the towplane

It should be obvious that yawing inside the turn (if the towplane is turning) does not help at all. So, rudder away from the turn. It does not take much.

When the rope comes tight, it's not a huge swing in either ship, it's just a realignment and a lessening of rope shock.

If all else fails, drop the rope (especially if you lose sight of the towplane).