Originally Posted by

I've towed with the TOST reel on the Skyline Soaring Club's Pawnee, the Rex Mayes reel on a tow plane I bought when SoaringNV opened, and Bumper's proprietary reel on another SoaringNV tow plane. All had guillotines: I never used that feature. I liked having the spool between my feet so I could see it spooling out and would be reminded to reel it in after glider release.

The best reel was Bumper's, but as he says, he has zero interest in building more. I don't blame him: he spent a whole lot of time on the installations he made for SoaringNV as he trouble-shooted (?) little features of the design.

One thing to remember about reel systems with guillotines is that if you use the guillotine you lose the rope and the weak link. At least with a hook on the tow plane tail you can drop the line and hope the glider pilot is sharp enough to remember to bring it back to the field so you can re-use it.

I liked using a reel mainly so I didn't have to approach high over fences, power lines, trees, etc. This is particularly important if you have a short towplane runway.

One thing to keep in mind with a reel is that if you break a rope, have it jump off the reel as it is reeling in, or have to guillotine it, you are probably out of service for about 30 minutes, maybe more. With a tail hook you just clip another rope on and start up again.