On 10/5/2016 2:50 PM, wrote:
In the early 1970s...
Snip...
I have long since suppressed most memories of that terrifying trip but not
the lessons of that masters-level, crash course (no pun intended,
fortunately) in trailer control. Everything I know about keeping
uncooperative trailers in line I learned that day.

I learned how to slow going uphill so I could avoid slowing (not good) or
braking (really bad!), and even accelerate slightly if needed on the way
down the hill. How to accelerate slightly when being passed by a large
truck. Or anything larger than a motorcycle, for that matter. How to watch
in the mirror to make certain there were no large trucks overtaking as we
reached the top of a hill.

How never to touch the brakes going around a curve. How to hit the throttle
to straighten out an incipient tail wag, including when going downhill
being passed by a large truck (see "how to slow going uphill", above).

For readers not yet personally acquainted with the need "to hit the throttle
to straighten out an incipient tail wag, including going downhill..." well,
you ain't yet lived life to its fullest. (BTDT!) Kinda like being over VNE and
concluding it would be faster to stop airframe flutter by INcreasing speed
rather than slowing down. Really bad place to be.

Should it happen to you, if you have any sense at all it'll be the sort of
"getting religion" experience that'll stick with you for the rest of your
life! Thanks for sharing, Chip. Yeow!

Bob W.

P.S. Another poster mentioned the good success he obtained by simply
increasing his trailer tire pressures. FWIW, unless you're sufficiently into
higher-performance vehicle handling so's to benefit from
tire-temperature-taking probe technology (and interpretation), another
"sensible rule of thumb" regarding towing glider trailers behind passenger
vehicles is simply to start out by ensuring every tire in contact with the
road is at its recommended (tire, not vehicle) maximum...and *screw* any
misplaced concern about "abbienormal tread wear" or "violating the vehicle's
owner's manual's recommendations." You won't get the former (in the absence of
running "bicycle-width" or "gumball" tires, of course), and no manual writer
can see into a vehicle's future, insofar as what sort of tires with which
it'll eventually be shod. Given today's tires, I'll wager Big Money far more
accidents are contributed to by "too low" tire pressures than "too high." As
always, YMMV...