wrote:

Looking at the Sporty's catalog, there are two types listed, the
Robotow and the VThrust tugs. Does anyone have any experience with
either of these? My plane is set up for a towbar with pins on either
side that enter both ends of the axle on the nose wheel. Do either of
these fit that type of attachment?

I have the VThrust (the kind that uses the drill for the motive force).
It comes with a variety of attachments and also will mount at two
different heights to accomodate both planes. The tow setup for
your plane sounds like my Navion. The mounting setup is easy
to do.

The only real downside, it fits only really one plane at a time. The
lever that releases the tug from the aircraft only opens the thing
enough to clear the fork so you can get it off. You need to use
the wrench to setup the width for any given aircraft. Not a problem
for a single owner.

I use an 18V DeWalt drill on it. It is all I can do pushing on the
wing root to push the plane up the slope in front of our door. The
tug handles it great. The drill has three speed ranges, but I use the
slow one for moving the plane most, the high speed for moving the
unladen tow bar around.

The towbar comes with two different models, one with a steering mode
and one without. I have the steering one, but it's totally
unnecessary in my opinion. It doesn't work well going backwards and
forwards unless you're going to pull the plane around multiple
corners, it's really not necessary. I pull my plane 90 degrees
as it comes out of the hanger, and could easily do it with the
steering locked.