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On Wed, 7 Jan 2004 19:06:40 -0700, "Bill Daniels"
wrote: The concern about airtow with CG hooks is for a condition that lies well outside the experience of 99% of glider pilots. If you airtow with a CG hook, keep in mind that a dragon lurks outside the normal airtow box. Don't go there. Bill Daniels I completely agree Bill. I'm a long rope fan because the normal box is larger. In fact I think it is not a linear function of rope length as the first 100 feet of rope is probably counts for little due to pilot/sailplane perception/reaction times. There are other dragons which have happened in Oz. Get too low on low tow, put a large bow in the rope and have it catch in the aileron/wing gap. Good reason to have a weak link at *both* ends of the rope. Having once done a cross country tow in low tow on a 130 foot rope and then discovered that the towplane exhaust system was about to fall off makes me not a low tow fan. I worry about the "we've required nose tow releases so we've fixed that problem" thinking. The problem didn't get fixed because nobody had the gumption to require a retrofit on ALL gliders. Politically impossible because when the chips were down it would be impossible to justify. Instead just stick the owners of new gliders with the cost because if they are buying a new glider they can afford it. The LBA/BGA/GFA/insert your civil aviation bureaucracy name here bureaucracy get to feel good because they have "improved" safety and can boast about this, most of the glider pilots don't care one way or the other as they are unaffected and tow pilots are at just as much risk as before as the fleet replacement only occurs slowly. Great! Requiring longer ropes would have been cheaper and would give immediate benefits but here we are still thinking 150 feet is adequate. Wonderful. Meanwhile we've had one mid air on tow in Oz. One side benefit of 250 foot ropes is that you do have time to look around while on tow instead of maintaining station with all your attention. Anybody who hasn't towed on a 250 foot rope I suggest you try it. It took one tow in 1982 for me to be a convert. Meanwhile realise as the tow pilot opens the throttle that you are potentially less than a minute from proving that youve thought about the low altitude tow emergency enough to carry it out successfully. It could be a rope break, engine failure or getting out of station or any one or more of quite a number of other things. Tom Knauff had a good article about this that I saw in Gliding Kiwi. Mike Borgelt |
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Mike Borgelt wrote:
The LBA/BGA/GFA/insert your civil aviation bureaucracy name here bureaucracy get to feel good because they have "improved" safety and can boast about this, most of the glider pilots don't care one way or the other as they are unaffected and tow pilots are at just as much risk as before as the fleet replacement only occurs slowly. Great! Even if you completely discount the risk of getting out of position, there is still a benefit to the glider pilot: the first 100' or so until the glider has good control is significantly better with nose hook. I've seen ground accidents that would not have occurred (including mine) with a nose hook. If you normally aerotow, I think it's cheap insurance to get one with your new glider. It might be almost as good a value as a retrofit, but because retrofit costs can vary so much, I can't be dogmatic about it. It was a good value to retrofit my ASW 20 C. Requiring longer ropes would have been cheaper and would give immediate benefits but here we are still thinking 150 feet is adequate. Wonderful. A longer rope won't aid the pilot in the first 100', when these ground accidents usually develop. -- ----- change "netto" to "net" to email me directly Eric Greenwell Washington State USA |
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