We at Mid Georgia Soaring (USA) fly from a paved strip. We dropped the rope
in the grass beside the initial paved part, on the side opposite, and away,
from operations. We didn't count tows per rope, but discard the rope when it
doesn't look right anymore. This is subjective but we got 6 months or more
per rope and we have not had a "real" rope break in years. We agreed that if
one 'group' of strands of a hollow-braided polypropylene was completely worn
through, it was more bad than good. About 3 years ago we switched to the
Tost Reel system, which allows us to land opposite takeoff and taxi up to
the next tow without dragging the rope and rings down a paved runway, saving
considerable time. Also no "lost" ropes anymore, and no worries about
snagged powerlines. After the usual 'teething' problems, it is very
satisfactory.
Flying out of Minden, I once landed at Silver Springs airport, a gravel
strip. The rocks were sharp edged, anout 1-3 cm diameter of some kind of
flint or obsidian rock, of obvious igneous origin. Tow ropes dragged across
this would surely suffer severely. I can only imagine what it does to tires!

--
Hartley Falbaum
wrote in message
ups.com...


We are trying to collect some information about tow ropes used
in the soaring community and the process people use deterime the
condition of the rope.

This is for aerowtow only. As an example the Tucson Soaring Club uses
a 2000 lb breaking strength rope with weak links on both ends.
Experience
has shown that the rope is best retired after 60 tows. We fly off
a packed gravel dirt surface in LOTS of sunshine. We sometimes have the
rope break without applying a heavy load as migh be encountered
during training or gusty conditions. Do others out there experience
this ?
Do you chalk it up to "just another rope break?" Or do you log the
number of tows for a particular rope and retire it like we do ?

Hope to hear back.

Thanks,

Bob Perry