www.caracolesoaring.com

Nice, Ms B, I love a good rant.

Here in Oz, we low tow.

This improves the feel of a nose high attitude in a full slippery ship,
you are always just below the slipstream, getting it slightly wrong only
gets you further down, not further in trouble.

The towplane is always fully in the canopy, easy to see.
Tug upsets are minimised, the tuggie will let you know fairly smartly if
he runs out of down elevator, but even so, he will not be greatly
alarmed.
Run him out of up elevator and there is trouble, almost instantly.

Your notation that the tug will stall before the glider is pertinant, it
follows that the problem is usually one of sensation rather than actual
danger, although I welcome being corrected on this.

When the tug is always above you, you feel like you are being pulled up,
as opposed to flying behind it.

Perhaps Hartley or some of the other posters have tried both and can
add?

Bagger




--
bagmaker[/i][/color]


I have flown low tow in our trainiing gliders and tried it on aerotow
retrieves. I have not tried it fully ballasted. I didn't like the rope
rubbing on the fuselage from the CG hook (no nose hook installed), and
really didn't find it less fatiguing. So, except to teach that it can be
done, I don't use it.

I agree that we fly just fine in thermals at a slower speed, and that a
Pawnee will stall before the glider. Therefore there must be some other
factor in the equation that we are not considering. My suspicion is that the
glider on tow is flying in disturbed air behind the towplane. This causes
the controls to be less effective. Perhaps laminar flow cannot be
established. Perhaps an Aerodynamicist could help us out here. In any event
the phenomenon is real, for sure.

Hartley Falbaum
USA "KF"