Blue Ridge Crash

At 17:31 15 April 2011, Eric Greenwell wrote:
On 4/15/2011 2:33 AM, Peter F wrote:
At 03:59 15 April 2011, Nick Kennedy wrote:

I am also a big fan of launchin
with the spoilers open and have been doing it now for several years
wit
good results.

Nick Kennedy
Grob Twin Astir TF
LS-6 XS


Consider the two scenarios.

1) You start the launch with the brakes locked, your hand on the
release.
You drop a wing pull off, start again.

2) You start the launch with you hand on the open airbrakes, not on
the
release. You drop a wing, can't pull off, groundloop, smash your
glider
to bits.

Which one makes you feel more of an idiot?

I think it's idiotic to be towing in an area where dropping a wing will

result in a ground loop, and that resulting groundloop will "smash your

glider to bits". But let's say you've already made those mistakes, and

consider scenario #3:

You start the launch with your hand on the open airbrakes, not on the
release. You DON'T drop a wing because the open spoilers give you much
better control, you DON'T pull off, you DON'T groundloop, and you
DON'T
smash your glider to bits. In fact, the launch proceeds smoothly, no
drama, nobody in danger or inconvenienced.

I used open spoilers for the last few years I owned my ASW 20, and I
never dropped a wing once I started doing that; before then, I did drop
a wing ocasionally. I NEVER ground looped, however, because the tip skid

just slid along the pavement.

Eric --Thank you for that thoughtful post!
There is alot of great info on this site, sometimes you just need a finer
mesh filter. And by the way my post was for aero towing, not winch
towing.
Nick Kennedy

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)
- "Transponders in Sailplanes - Feb/2010" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarm
http://tinyurl.com/yb3xywl
- "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation Mar/2004" Much of what

you need to know tinyurl.com/yfs7tnz