I must say that I almost agree. I have had 4 gliders. My Astir CS had
a tost brake that was bad. My ASW17 had a tost brake that was a bad joke
considering the mass of the 17. My ASW22 had a disc brake that worked
pretty well after bleeding but it just did not like to stay bled.
Amazingly, the tost drum brake on my Ventus C works like a champ. I can
put the glider on its nose if I want.

Chris Reed wrote:
My open Cirrus (1968, probably 400kg with me on board) has the 400 x 4
wheel and Tost brake.

The main purpose of the brake is to stop the glider overrunning the
aerotow rope in the Up slack/All out transition.

It also makes a scraping noise if I use it after landing.

I've never yet met a reliable glider wheel brake. I suspect the worst
kind are those which work *almost* all the time (K21 comes to mind)
because then you might get into the habit of pointing the glider at
expensive objects!

Bruce wrote:
Anyone who relies on the ineffectual brake fitted to most older
gliders is an optimist of note.

On the 4.00 X 4 hub common to these aircraft you have a couple of
square centimetres of friction material, with non energising shoes
trying to stop around 300 - 350kg of glider moving at anything up to
100km/h. Most are good for one retardation only, at best, then they
fade severely.

In my experience, with a lot of fettling work one can achieve a brake
that is reliably weak - which is a whole lot better than the
alternative. But experience indicates that one should still discount
it ever working effectively in an emergency.

You would be distressed to see how much damage you can cause at
walking speed with a 15m single seater. Just think what a 26m+
motorised uber bug smasher could do with all it's inertia. (although
they tend to have halfway decent disk brakes these days)

In any case the man has it right - Don't point your glider at anything
you intend to keep, especially on a downhill. There is no need to
provoke Murphy.

Mike Schumann wrote:
"never point the plane at anything valuable whilst expecting this
brake to stop it..."??????????
snip