Fatal crash Arizona

At 01:25 14 September 2016, BobW wrote:
On 9/13/2016 4:24 PM, Don Johnstone wrote:
At 17:28 13 September 2016, BobW wrote:

That said - and since a number of these hooks have been
installed
into the
noses of German-built ships originally entering the USA with
only
a CG hook
- owners of ships with these hooks SHOULD (and easily can)
VERIFY
the
presence/absence of such a compression spring by checking
to
see if the
pawl is positively forced against the rotating piece of the cable
hook
throughout its rotation range. Positive engagement = spring-
present.

Bob W.

I am now confused by the "installed in German" part. Is the
release you
are
talking about a TOST release?


Sorry for any confusion. A number of "Applebay releases" have
been
subsequently installed in (on the fuselage bottom surface, near
the front
of
the nose of) non-USA-built gliders imported into the USA with only
a
single,
CG-mounted, release back by the wheel. This second cable
attachment point
provided "a nose-hooked aero-towing option." Many - not all -
such modified

ships were of German origin.

FWIW, I've been privately informed by a fellow Zuni owner (of S/N
28) that
his
ship's release uses a(n easily visible) *tension* spring (not
compression,
as
on S/N 2) to positively seat the pawl against the rotating/indented
cable
hook
part...which is what my fallible memory kinda-sorta remembered
from my own
(not recently looked at) Zuni (S/N 3).

In either case, any owner of a ship with an "Applebay nose
release"
can/should
easily confirm the presence of such a spring by verifying the
business end
of
the pawl is "somehow or other" positively forced against the
rotating cable

hook as it operates throughout its range of motion. The truly
curious can
disconnect it before operating their releases to get a better feel for
what
I
sought to describe in an earlier post. Please do reconnect it...or
YMMV!

Bob W.

Thanks for that. My ASW17 was fitted with a TOST winch hook near
the nose for aerotow. There was a wooden block installed behind
the back release ring to prevent it's operation as a back release
function on an aerotow hook is undesirable. Back in the 60's we
would tape up winch launch hooks to prevent the back release from
operating when aerowtowing.