1201 & Tow Planes

On Sep 10, 5:41*pm, Jamie Shore wrote:
My initial post did not include my reasoning for tow planes squawking
1201 - I was ham handedly typing on my iPhone.

My reasoning for tow planes squawking 1201 WHEN DIRECTLY INVOLVED IN
TOWING OPERATIONS is as follows:

The Soaring Club of Houston is 4 miles from Houston's Class B.

Tow planes are flying from the highest glider density area
(gliderport) into moderately dense glider area(about 4 miles of
gliderport) during tows - very few of the gliders have transponders so
the tow plane indicates to TRACON that gliders are active in the area.
The few gliders that have transponders will occasionally & randomly
(just by topping out in the thermal) indicate to TRACON the max
heights of the thermals for the day.

Half of the time that the tow plane is in the air it is attached to a
glider without a transponder. Only 4 of SCOH's gliders out of approx
30 gliders have transponders.

The other half of the time it is descending through glider(almost none
transponder equipped) dense airspace.

On a good soaring day, tow planes are dropping gliders off in or near
thermals with many gliders in them - with almost no transponder
equipped gliders.

In general, the towplane is very close to many other gliders and very
few of those gliders have transponders.

Maybe more of your gliders need to get transponders if you're that
close to Class B. Our gliders at the San Antonio club all have
transponders and it certainly helps with the traffic going in and out
of San Antonio International.