In the spirit of embarrasing admissions here.

I transitioned to aerotow at around 300 flights. Only ever winch
launched for the first part of my career.

By then I was a happy and reasonably competent Std Cirrus driver. (no
nose hook) I found aerotow difficult to get right because of over
controlling the Grob Twin Astir - I was not used to the momentum in
those heavy wings, and we were towing on CG hook so that I would be used
to it when I transited to the Cirrus - and we wallowed all over the
place behind the tug. To the despair of my instructors who no doubt
started wondering how I had flown solo...
Trying to simultaneously transition to aerotow, on CG hook, with a
completely new class of glider to me - put me back at ab-initio
competence for a while.

To shorten a long and frustrating experience - the winch experience on
the CG hook was little help. In fact the winch training can impede
progress. If you can fly aerotow competently the CG hook makes it only a
little more difficult. The aircraft will not self correct nearly as much
as on nose hook, so sloppy flying will be rewarded with diverging
excursions.

Then the good news - to get back to your questions - as soon as the CFI
let me go fly my own nimble little Cirrus it all went a lot better.
There is no substitute for experience - on type, and yes training will
help. The control harmony of what you are flying will influence the
outcome and what really counts is experience with aerotow in general,
and experience with what you are flying. Specifically the ability to fly
very precisely, and experience on the type you plan to fly on the CG hook.

CG hook specific misadventures:
If you get too high - especially with some designs, there is danger of
kiteing.
On the ground run, crosswinds are much more of an issue. No correcting
force on the nose so the grass at the side of the runway exerts an
inexorable attraction. You have to be on top of lateral control all the
time and be prepared to release the moment if goes sideways. Lateral
diversions on the ground run that are recoverable on nose hook tow will
result in a ground loop on the CG hook.
If your mount has airbrakes behind the CG you can help with directional
stability at any point by cracking them open.
Nose up pitch - the CG hook is below the centreline, so jerks on the tow
rope will tend to rotate the nose up. Especially on a light high drag
single seater like a Ka8. (this is one way to go kiteing)

(PS: The Grob STILL flies like a pig on CG hook - just my biased
personal view.)



On 2012/05/25 4:54 AM, son_of_flubber wrote:
I've been told (and witnessed) that aerotow on CG hook is initially difficult for someone who has trained for aerotow with a "nose hook" (aka hook-forward-of-CG). Suppose this CG-hook-newbie were to take winch tow training (with CG hook). Would the winch training reduce the initial difficulty of a CG hook aerotow?

Do the difficulties/danger of aerotow with CG hook go away completely with training and experience?

What sorts of misadventures are reasonably attributed to aerotow on CG hook?

I understand why CG hook is superior for winch tow. No need to rehash that explanation.

--
Bruce Greeff
T59D #1771