Dylan Smith dylan wrote:
I don't really like doing it, but we did land in
tailwinds routinely whilst towing gliders at one
glider club I towed for. On busy days we'd do
the downwind landing to cut turnaround time
for the next tow.

What gliderport is that??

At the gliderport where I fly, we have Pawnee tow planes and one paved and two
dirt runways, no 300-ft-wide grass area like you described. The tow planes
don't do downwind landings to save time, busy or not.

If the glider in front of you takes a pattern tow, how much time is going to be
saved by the tow plane doing a downwind landing? a minute? two MAYBE? if the
glider in front of you takes a 3K-ft tow (that takes several minutes), the
little time saved doing a downwind landing is insignificant anyway.

I'm curious as to how "busy" it has to be to justify that? Are you talking
about 3 gliders waiting to be towed? or 10? Either way, unless you have 10
people waiting in line *all day long*, how much time is really saved by doing a
downwind landing vs. a conventional one? not to mention the obvious SAFETY
issue -- if you have THAT many gliders ready to go that you're concerned about
a minute or two of their "wait time", there are also going to be GLIDERS
landing *into* the wind at the same time! Sounds like a recipe for disaster,
just to maybe get a couple more tows in. Is a glider pilot going to refuse to
wait the extra couple of minutes for the Pawnee to make a landing into the
wind? I don't think so.

Sad ... $$ is really always the bottom line motivator, huh?

--Shirley