I've mentioned this before but it's been a few years.

Carrying heavy steel screw-in's or stakes doesn't appeal to me. They're too
bulky and heavy. They also won't hold in really soft ground like a plowed
field or sand.

Years ago I hit on a solution I like. I bought some heavy five gallon nylon
bags with nylon rope drawstrings and a small, light, folding shovel called a
trenching tool. To make a tie-down, dig a hole, put the dirt in the bag
then put the bag in the hole. They hold well enough that I broke a 1/2"
nylon rope trying to pull one out with a 4x4. Three bags, three motorcycle
tie-down straps and the trenching tool weigh less than a pound and fold up
into a roughly 6"x12" package.

Obviously, these are temporary tie-downs. The only drawback is that I've
not been able to get the bags out of the ground so I have to buy new ones
each time I use the system.

Bill Daniels


wrote in message
oups.com...
I've looked at the corkscrew type stakes and like the other poster,
thought they were a waste of time. In anything but quite soft dirt they
are imposible to screw in, and even then the smaller ones just don't
look strong enough. I ended up using "The claw" sold by Wings and
Wheels and others. I carry these as part of my landout kit. I've also
left the glider tied down for weeks at time at an airport using them.
They were nailed into hard dirt and were not going anywhere.

BTW since my glider only has tiedown locations at the wingtips I need
to be careful with the claw as the eye bolt sticking up from the top
could damage the wing underside if the wing came down on the claw.
Other tiedows including the screw in type, have the same problem. I
solve that at least at the airport by sitting a old aircraft tyre over
the top of the claw and running the tie down rope up through the centre
of the tire.

Darryl