On Thursday, October 23, 2014 10:41:57 AM UTC-4, son_of_flubber wrote:
It would be useful to hear your stories of how incidents of tow plane engine failure turned out for you. It seems that there is very little time to recognize, react, and recover. What are classic mistakes to make in this scenario?

Would it be useful to practice 'release and land to the side of the tow plane path' (and have the tow plane fly a normal departure of course)? Any other recommended training exercises?

The classic problem is one of not having a plan. All portions of the critical part of the launch need to have a plan of what to do so it is "only" a matter of execution.
There is almost no time for problem solving.
I have had 3 engine failures as tow pilot. 2 were complete power loss. 2 pilots got it right and released- one started reporting smoke from the towplane instead of getting off.
UH