On Wednesday, June 28, 2017 at 8:43:11 AM UTC-4, Walt Connelly wrote:

One might conclude from this thread that there is an acceptable
death rate among tow pilots

You state this like it's shocking.

There's a death rate associated with taking aspirin. Or lying in bed.

I looked up all fatal accidents for airplanes in the NTSB database containing the words "glider" and "tow". Back to 1970, it's 24. This link will open that search http://tinyurl.com/y9flwdkh

While there's nothing to celebrate here, that number is an order of magnitude smaller than the number you get in a search for fatal glider accidents over the same period of time (295) and nearly three orders of magnitude smaller than the number of all fatal accidents involving airplanes (22,062). If you sift through those 24 reports to find the fatal accidents where failure to release (for any reason) might have been a factor (many of the accidents happened well after the glider released normally) you might well be down to single digits. I've read about a third of them so far. In any event, you will get to a "small" number, albeit one with that came with catastrophic consequences for family, friends and associates in each and every case (as happened 22,000+ other times over hte same time frame in GA as a whole).. I have no death wish and I do not enjoy the prospect of unnecessary or easily avoidable risk to myself or my friends, and neither does anyone else I know.

Neither am I (or anyone else I know who tows) unconcerned about the potential for problems with the "Elmira Death Hook" (thanks, Gregg), but there's an awful lot else out there that (statistically) is far more likely to be our undoing, especially if we go soaring as well as tow. I do recommend towplane operators improve their release hardware at their earliest opportunity if they are still flying an EDH. And this is my own plan. In the meantime, as previously stated, we're still towing.

You'll do as you see fit of course. But I won't be at all surprised when no one at the FAA takes this very seriously, because on the numbers, they should have better things to do. If per chance someone does (Hi Steve, I hope you're reading!), then the right way to go is get helpful information in the hands of operators, not simply ground everyone.

There are STC'd kits for many towplanes available. By no means all, and mine is one of the oversights so no, I do not have the option of writing a $2500 check and making this happen immediately. Thanks for reading.

best regards,
Evan Ludeman / T8