Letter to the FAA

On Tuesday, 27 June 2017 02:40:44 UTC+3, wrote:
And the premise that if we fix this one thing at any cost then flying will be safe is ludicrous. As is the premise that Schweizer hooks are a killing machine. The current rate is acceptable. If you aren't OK with a mechanical device failing and killing a pilot once every twenty years you shouldn't be flying in general aviation aircraft.

Wow, just wow. Acceptable. It is a release design that is clearly not working as it should and easily fixed with little money and effort (relative to costs of flying in general). And you are talking about acceptable rate of dead tow pilots? Seriously?

On Tuesday, June 27, 2017 at 10:53:28 AM UTC-4, krasw wrote:
Wow, just wow. Acceptable. It is a release design that is clearly not working as it should and easily fixed with little money and effort (relative to costs of flying in general). And you are talking about acceptable rate of dead tow pilots? Seriously?

It's obviously acceptable: we keep towing, yes?

In many 10s of thousands of tows, my club has had no kiting incidents. No one denies the possibility of an unrecoverable accident and the probability of a Schweizer release failure in this circumstance, but experience shows that these are low probability events. Most of us can distinguish between 1:100,000 and 1:2.

My job as the safety guy is to look at the whole picture, not be a one issue zealot. Given limited resources, I'm on the 1:1000 problems first, not the 1:100,000 problems.

A Tost release is on my want list, but honestly it is not hard to some up with ten things that are far more important to overall club safety.

However, someone posts a 337 for a Tost installation on an L-19, I'll pass the hat, call Portland fsdo and start the ball rolling. It'll be a Winter project and maybe not this Winter if I have to roll my own 337.

Evan Ludeman -- Post Mills Soaring

I wonder what paperwork is legally required for an inverted Schwiezer tow release (if you already have one installed)? Should be pretty simple and cheap to do the actual change AND get most of the benefit of a Tost release.

This from a guy that lost a friend that was towing in NJ maybe 30 years ago and had a kiting issue while low. The glider pilot was a known squirrel and was not welcome at our field.

Hello Walt, First I want to thank you for all the great tows when I was working on my CFIG back in February. If you want to send your letter to the FAA, and it sounds as if you will, you might want to take some precautions. In the 40+ years I flew for a living only 3 or 4 pilots contacted the FAA with safety concerns. To be fair we had other avenues, i.e. Union, etc to air our grievances. But a few did go to the FAA and later had regrets. If they pursue your concerns you may be asked some hard questions. Did you report the incident? To whom did you report the incident? Employer, NASA, FAA, SSA, or anybody else? Did you do a proper preflight of the tow hook? There will be many other questions but I think you get my point. They will be thorough and you will feel as if you are in crosshairs. And you will be in the crosshairs. Before you put a stamp on it get some advice from an aviation lawyer. AOPA has a great legal staff. I would trust their opinion on how to approach the FAA before listening to anyone else. Good luck.

Originally Posted by Dave White[_2_]

Hello Walt, First I want to thank you for all the great tows when I was working on my CFIG back in February. If you want to send your letter to the FAA, and it sounds as if you will, you might want to take some precautions. In the 40+ years I flew for a living only 3 or 4 pilots contacted the FAA with safety concerns. To be fair we had other avenues, i.e. Union, etc to air our grievances. But a few did go to the FAA and later had regrets. If they pursue your concerns you may be asked some hard questions. Did you report the incident? To whom did you report the incident? Employer, NASA, FAA, SSA, or anybody else? Did you do a proper preflight of the tow hook? There will be many other questions but I think you get my point. They will be thorough and you will feel as if you are in crosshairs. And you will be in the crosshairs. Before you put a stamp on it get some advice from an aviation lawyer. AOPA has a great legal staff. I would trust their opinion on how to approach the FAA before listening to anyone else. Good luck.

Dave,

Thank you, I truly loved towing skilled pilots, students and the geriatric crowd not so much but such is life.

As an old retiree I am not aware of all the avenues available for reporting and
"complaining" but I am trying to be careful in all aspects of this endeavor.

I of course reported this to the manager and VP, they are well aware of the incident, more aware than they would like to be I am sure. If there are other avenues of reporting please advise. I was all over the FAA site looking for reporting information and could not find any. Go figure.

I am finding it very difficult to find the information I need as many links to things I want to read are not working. I have learned alot though and my conclusion is that tow pilots, unless they are A&P's or otherwise very familiar with regulations and requirements are doing things everyday contrary to manufacturers recommendations among other things. For instance I understand that towing a glider of a maximum gross weight exceeding 1500 lbs is prohibited by the Schweizer manufacturer, not so with the Tost which I can find information that it exceed 3000 lbs.

One might conclude from this thread that there is an acceptable death rate among tow pilots and that $2500 dollars and repositioning release handles is too much to prevent a death.

Hope you are having a ball teaching.

Walt

Walt,
Glad to see you saved my message as my fat fingers managed to delete it trying to edit on my phone� I would start with NASA even though you are outside the 10 day window and copy to SSA. https://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/report/electronic.html You might consider joining AOPA as they have a great legal team and a good track record of dealing with the FAA.
Regards,
Dave

A Tost CG release is made to release with a rear load on it. Why couldn't that release be mounted on a tow plane so that when the glider got too high it would "back release"?

Boggs

On Wednesday, June 28, 2017 at 8:43:11 AM UTC-4, Walt Connelly wrote:

One might conclude from this thread that there is an acceptable
death rate among tow pilots

You state this like it's shocking.

There's a death rate associated with taking aspirin. Or lying in bed.

I looked up all fatal accidents for airplanes in the NTSB database containing the words "glider" and "tow". Back to 1970, it's 24. This link will open that search http://tinyurl.com/y9flwdkh

While there's nothing to celebrate here, that number is an order of magnitude smaller than the number you get in a search for fatal glider accidents over the same period of time (295) and nearly three orders of magnitude smaller than the number of all fatal accidents involving airplanes (22,062). If you sift through those 24 reports to find the fatal accidents where failure to release (for any reason) might have been a factor (many of the accidents happened well after the glider released normally) you might well be down to single digits. I've read about a third of them so far. In any event, you will get to a "small" number, albeit one with that came with catastrophic consequences for family, friends and associates in each and every case (as happened 22,000+ other times over hte same time frame in GA as a whole).. I have no death wish and I do not enjoy the prospect of unnecessary or easily avoidable risk to myself or my friends, and neither does anyone else I know.

Neither am I (or anyone else I know who tows) unconcerned about the potential for problems with the "Elmira Death Hook" (thanks, Gregg), but there's an awful lot else out there that (statistically) is far more likely to be our undoing, especially if we go soaring as well as tow. I do recommend towplane operators improve their release hardware at their earliest opportunity if they are still flying an EDH. And this is my own plan. In the meantime, as previously stated, we're still towing.

You'll do as you see fit of course. But I won't be at all surprised when no one at the FAA takes this very seriously, because on the numbers, they should have better things to do. If per chance someone does (Hi Steve, I hope you're reading!), then the right way to go is get helpful information in the hands of operators, not simply ground everyone.

There are STC'd kits for many towplanes available. By no means all, and mine is one of the oversights so no, I do not have the option of writing a $2500 check and making this happen immediately. Thanks for reading.

best regards,
Evan Ludeman / T8

Originally Posted by Tango Eight

On Wednesday, June 28, 2017 at 8:43:11 AM UTC-4, Walt Connelly wrote:

One might conclude from this thread that there is an acceptable
death rate among tow pilots

You state this like it's shocking.

There's a death rate associated with taking aspirin. Or lying in bed.

I looked up all fatal accidents for airplanes in the NTSB database containing the words "glider" and "tow". Back to 1970, it's 24. This link will open that search http://tinyurl.com/y9flwdkh

While there's nothing to celebrate here, that number is an order of magnitude smaller than the number you get in a search for fatal glider accidents over the same period of time (295) and nearly three orders of magnitude smaller than the number of all fatal accidents involving airplanes (22,062). If you sift through those 24 reports to find the fatal accidents where failure to release (for any reason) might have been a factor (many of the accidents happened well after the glider released normally) you might well be down to single digits. I've read about a third of them so far. In any event, you will get to a "small" number, albeit one with that came with catastrophic consequences for family, friends and associates in each and every case (as happened 22,000+ other times over hte same time frame in GA as a whole).. I have no death wish and I do not enjoy the prospect of unnecessary or easily avoidable risk to myself or my friends, and neither does anyone else I know.

Neither am I (or anyone else I know who tows) unconcerned about the potential for problems with the "Elmira Death Hook" (thanks, Gregg), but there's an awful lot else out there that (statistically) is far more likely to be our undoing, especially if we go soaring as well as tow. I do recommend towplane operators improve their release hardware at their earliest opportunity if they are still flying an EDH. And this is my own plan. In the meantime, as previously stated, we're still towing.

You'll do as you see fit of course. But I won't be at all surprised when no one at the FAA takes this very seriously, because on the numbers, they should have better things to do. If per chance someone does (Hi Steve, I hope you're reading!), then the right way to go is get helpful information in the hands of operators, not simply ground everyone.

There are STC'd kits for many towplanes available. By no means all, and mine is one of the oversights so no, I do not have the option of writing a $2500 check and making this happen immediately. Thanks for reading.

best regards,
Evan Ludeman / T8

Yes Mr Ludeman, there is a death rate associated with asprin and lying in bed. In the case of aspirin if you have a compromised GI Tract or if you take too much you can develop GI bleeding which can lead to death. I also recall a patient with a CVA which was later attributable to excessive asprin use. There are better analgesic alternatives these days to aspirin but it's cheap and easily available over the counter just as there is a better alternative to the Schweizer hook as installed these days. Lying in bed can result in thrombosis which if not managed properly can lead to stroke or death, I am well aware of these things. The difference is that they are usually self inflicted. If inflicted by others who knew or should have known of the potential negative results then penalties can apply. Failure of a medical staff to not properly care for an invalid patient is well known and can result in sanctions.

The difference here is that the tow pilot is placed in jeopardy by the unskilled or careless action of the glider pilot on tow. The tow pilot is then further placed in jeopardy by a mechanical device well known to failure just when needed the most. My point is that this is a largely correctable condition. My recommendation will be to at a minimum, invert the Schweizer hook and reposition the release handle so as to make it quickly available to the tow pilot. I am trying very hard to not inhibit the sport of glider flying while at the same time improving the survivability of the tow pilot at a critical point in time.

Yes, more glider pilots die in accidents than tow pilots but these are largely the result of a mistake made by the glider pilot. I am not suggesting that we can totally eliminate risk from the sport. I ride a motorcycle, I've sky dived, flown the jump plane, scuba dived (I now only dive with someone well known to me as a result of a near major accident) and I was a volunteer for the Vietnam Police Action. I've ridden a 12 speed racing bicycle on the road with cars, hunted wild boar with a handgun and long bow, all these things could have resulted in my loss of life. Pilots by the very nature of what they do are risk takers.

Perhaps until you find yourself at a very low altitude, unable to release from a kiting glider due to a design flaw in the release you will not understand. Yes we continue to tow. I did 8 more tows the day of my last incident. I continued to tow for a couple of more weeks after the incident with the same set up.

I am additionally well aware that there is an altitude below which a tow pilot will not be able to react quickly enough regardless of the equipment available. That is a risk we take.

Yes, the FAA may totally ignore my response, but then again perhaps a few glider operations will see the validity of my point and make a life saving change. For the record an entire country has addressed this problem and long ago mandated the changes I am suggesting here. I do have my supporters.

Have a great day,

Walt

On Tuesday, June 27, 2017 at 11:55:57 AM UTC-4, Charlie M. (UH & 002 owner/pilot) wrote:
I wonder what paperwork is legally required for an inverted Schwiezer tow release (if you already have one installed)? Should be pretty simple and cheap to do the actual change AND get most of the benefit of a Tost release.

I grok you still need a 337. But anyhow, Schweizer hooks are out of production. So it comes down to some version of the following:

Option 1: http://www.wingsunlimitedtowhooks.co...on-bumper.html

Option 2: http://wingsandwheels.com/aircraft-p...w-release.html

This isn't really a tough call, but you do need an approved installation.

best,
Evan Ludeman / T8