Letter to the FAA

Originally Posted by

Walt-

Before you go off with velocity but no direction, please supply the names and incidences of all these dead tow pilots. You see a problem because it happened to you. I agree that perhaps the Schweizer release is susceptible to failures when the towed glider is wildly out of position, and that there is likely a remedy through either inverting the release or hoping for better training.

Asking for a ban on these release mechanisms nationwide is likely to cause a large number of glider operations to halt operations since the Schweizer release is the ONLY mechanism accepted for a particular tow plane. Banning the Schweizer release is likely to shut down an active club or commercial operator.

The FAA will issue a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) prior to proposing an Airworthiness Directive that would ban the use of the Schweizer release. They will have to justify this by citing the "Unsafe conditions" that the AD is supposed to correct. You will have to supply the evidence that this is, in fact, a valid concern. Be prepared with solid evidence of fatalities, accidents incidents and testimony from affected parties. Your word and your singular experiences will not be enough.

Commercial operators and clubs faced with a significant monetary outlay to change release systems are encouraged to document the hundreds of thousands of successful aerotows using the Schweizer release with no incidents or accidents (or tow pilot fatalities).

You don't like Schweizer releases because of your particularly terrifying experience, and I can heartily agree and accept that. Glad you are still around. But, how many tows have you done with the same system that went off without a hitch?

I have fallen off a bicycle several times. (Also motorcycles, hang gliders, horses etc., etc.) but I don't see the need to stop other participants when the vast majority of operations are carried out successfully..

Or, as one of my more colorfully necked acquaintances recently said,

"Y'all don't need ta' NUKE the gopher!"

Mark,

I am surprised that you would ask the question "But how many tows have you done with the same system that went off without a hitch?" Are you serious? Well, to answer your question I have done just short of 7,000 tows prior to my "dismissal." Of those seven thousand, TWO resulted in a severe, sudden, unanticipated kiting which resulted in my need to attempt to release. Of those two situations, IN ONE HUNDRED PERCENT OF THEM I WAS UNABLE TO RELEASE FROM THE GLIDER.

I too have fallen from my bicycle, I was a USCF Senior Three many years and about 40 pounds ago. The bicycle fall was my fault, no one elses. I have dropped my motorcycle in the rain, my fault, no one elses. I too have fallen from a horse, my fault. The difference here is that a tow pilot is connected to a glider by a 200 foot rope and the glider pilot can negatively affect the situation with no fault of the tow pilot. If at that moment the system that is meant to save the life of the tow pilot doesn't work (and it is beyond well documented that it might not) the tow pilot could be dead. What part of this is it that some people don't seem to understand?

I am willing to allow the SFF/SAA and their representatives handle this but the fact is they have had decades to do so and have failed in this regard.


Walt