On Fri, 18 Dec 2020 21:07:18 -0800, 5Z wrote:

On Friday, December 18, 2020 at 10:06:46 AM UTC-7, quietpilot wrote:
Our Tow pilots report the same thing. and it wouldn't capture that
except as compared to the glider logs and timestamps.

Is there any way to measure the load on the tow hook? If a strain gauge
could somehow be placed to measure the load, some smart logic could
detect that a glider is no longer back there.
My guess is that a glider on to would always be putting a load of at
least 40-50 lb when averaged over several seconds.

For level flight the load should be glider weight divided by glide ratio
at tow speed, but since the combination is climbing the load will be a
bit higher: by sin(glider weight) IIRC. When I calculated that I got
about 60 kg for a Std Libelle in a normal 65 kt climb behind a Robin
DR400.


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Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org