On Feb 7, 1:26*pm, bildan wrote:
On Feb 7, 10:27*am, None wrote:

The rules say that an aircraft towing or re-fueling has the right-of-
way over all other powered aircraft.

Please point out to critics of glider operations that every pilot is
taught this rule before flying solo and that this rule is on the
written test he or she must take before getting a license.

It's possibly worse than that.

The Boulder airspace available for tow planes is severely restricted
by noise sensitive areas meaning that departures and arrivals resemble
instrument flying SID's and STAR's. *Every MHG aero tow departure
follows one of three tightly constrained routes. *These routes are
published on local maps and posted where every local pilot can see
them. *Instructors doing field checkouts and BFR's always make sure
pilots know about them.

From published photos and maps, the collision happened on the heavily
used "north mountain departure" route - ~90% of MHG tows use that
route with a tow every 5 or 10 minutes in busy times. *That route has
a Minimum Crossing Altitude (MCA) at the foothills of 8300 feet MSL so
tow altitudes are also tightly constrained.

The Cirrus was registered to a Boulder resident but it's not yet clear
who was flying it. *The pilot should have been very familiar with
heavy aero tow traffic on the north mountain departure and known
exactly where tows are likely to be encountered.

My post was intended as a way to reply to nonpilots, news media, etc.
We are bound to get more and ore criticism and comments to the effect
that there should be no glider flying, or somewhat less restricted
versions
of the same argument.

From the description the Cirrus pilot was just not looking and in
effect just walked
out into the road without looking to see whether a car was coming. I
don't
want to be insensitive to the family of the Cirrus pilot, but the
fault was his
and not the fact that glider activity was present. In my experience,
many IFR pilots
just don't look out for VFR traffic and expect ATC to keep them clear
of ALL traffic.
Is that stressed enough in IFR training? ( I know this is before any
NTSB ruling
and is based on hearsay evidence only.)