ASW 24 WL for beginner ?

"Bruce Greeff" wrote in message
...
Depends where you are.

There are winches at every club I have ever visited in South Africa.
At my club we gave up on Aerotow 8 years ago.
It is expensive.
It is slow.
It is more dangerous in some ways.
We have predictable enough thermals that we have very low 'relight'
incidence.

That said, you need aerotow when you have long wings, or are carrying
water or need the height or physical displacement to be able to contact
lift. The nose hooks on our gliders are pristine, make us an offer...


I agree.

Bill Daniels

Although the ASW-24 is a delightful glider to fly and behaves very
well in almost all situations, I would not recommend it for recently
licensed pilots, mostly because it requires a fair amount of precision
on landing. The airspeed must be tightly controlled and the circuit
planned and executed exactly for short field landings. While the dive
brakes are reasonably good but improper airspeed control reduces their
effectiveness. It does slip quite well but, again, this is a maneouvre
that many new pilots will find difficult in a glider like this. I
would recommend other gliders for newly licensed pilots, such as, for
example, the LS-4.

Ulli Werneburg
ASW-24 #24078 'MZ'

(Harry) wrote in message m...
would you recommend this ship for a recently licensed pilot ??? comments welcome!

regards
Harry

(Harry) wrote in message m...
would you recommend this ship for a recently licensed pilot ??? comments welcome!

regards
Harry

Reply:
This depends on the experienceyou have at this time and how your
training was done.
The '24 is a very honest glider with excellent stabilty.
Early versions without winglets do exhibit some wing tip drop at stall
if not well coordinated. That said, there is reliable warning. This is
helped a lot by the factory added winglets and even more by
aftermarket winglets in use in some countries.
Speed control is important in landing but not remarkably so.
The '24 was the first of the new generation of gliders with enhanced
safety as an important part of the design. Many manufacturers are just
now starting to catch up.
These include progressive failure in the cockpit area, Upper safety
beam in the cockpit, seat pan design, powerful hydraulic brake,
landing gear designed to fail progresively absorbing energy, and other
detail features.
Towing is honest with CG hook. Most in Europe will have the forward
nose hook installed. If flying with 30M ropes, I would suggest nose
hook for added safety.
If you were trained in modern glass, get some spin training and a few
hours in LS4 or similar and go for it.
I owned a '24 for 13 years and really enjoyed it.
Good luck UH

FWIW,

My experience airotowing using a belly hook has been limited to my PIK
20B, fitted with Mazak winglets, using the Aussie low-tow technique.
Take-off procedure is stock standard:
1. Select full negative flap (-8 deg)
2. Select full forward trim
3. Hold the ship on the ground with back stick until full aileron
control established.
4. Ease stick forward and ease flaps to neutral. Ship lifts off with
no further elevator input.
5. Hold ship at 5-10 feet until tug lifts off and rises above glider.
6. Glider follows just under tug slip-stream. ( If there is a cross
wind hold the ship on ground longer until just before tug lifts off).

The above gives excellent directional control on the ground with no
tendency to drop a wing or drift off-line. Ropes are standard 55
metres length.

In the air (low tow position) directional stability is excellent but
one needs to read changes to the tug's angle of bank quickly. Only
had one (short-term) scare when, in my first competition, the tug went
into a 45 degree RH bank into a thermal at 600'. Took a few
milliseconds to regain my equilibrium!!

Only had one other experience of concern when an experienced tuggie
persuaded me to undertake an outlanding retrieve (from a remote
airfield) using a 35 meter rope - an experience I didn't enjoy and
wouldn't recommend.

Overall, aerotowing with the belly hook hasn't presented any
difficulties worth worrying about and well-intentioned (doom and
gloom) predictions by instructors and winch drivers fortunately have
proved groundless.

Geoff Vincent
Mangalore Gliding Club
Australia

VH-GAX


On 23 Jul 2003 05:32:18 -0700, (Hank Nixon)
wrote:

(Harry) wrote in message m...
would you recommend this ship for a recently licensed pilot ??? comments welcome!

regards
Harry

Reply:
This depends on the experienceyou have at this time and how your
training was done.
The '24 is a very honest glider with excellent stabilty.
Early versions without winglets do exhibit some wing tip drop at stall
if not well coordinated. That said, there is reliable warning. This is
helped a lot by the factory added winglets and even more by
aftermarket winglets in use in some countries.
Speed control is important in landing but not remarkably so.
The '24 was the first of the new generation of gliders with enhanced
safety as an important part of the design. Many manufacturers are just
now starting to catch up.
These include progressive failure in the cockpit area, Upper safety
beam in the cockpit, seat pan design, powerful hydraulic brake,
landing gear designed to fail progresively absorbing energy, and other
detail features.
Towing is honest with CG hook. Most in Europe will have the forward
nose hook installed. If flying with 30M ropes, I would suggest nose
hook for added safety.
If you were trained in modern glass, get some spin training and a few
hours in LS4 or similar and go for it.
I owned a '24 for 13 years and really enjoyed it.
Good luck UH

On Thu, 24 Jul 2003 17:05:30 +1000, Geoff Vincent
wrote:

FWIW,

My experience airotowing using a belly hook has been limited to my PIK
20B, fitted with Mazak winglets, using the Aussie low-tow technique.
Take-off procedure is stock standard:
1. Select full negative flap (-8 deg)
2. Select full forward trim
3. Hold the ship on the ground with back stick until full aileron
control established.
4. Ease stick forward and ease flaps to neutral. Ship lifts off with
no further elevator input.
5. Hold ship at 5-10 feet until tug lifts off and rises above glider.
6. Glider follows just under tug slip-stream. ( If there is a cross
wind hold the ship on ground longer until just before tug lifts off).

The above gives excellent directional control on the ground with no
tendency to drop a wing or drift off-line. Ropes are standard 55
metres length.

In the air (low tow position) directional stability is excellent but
one needs to read changes to the tug's angle of bank quickly. Only
had one (short-term) scare when, in my first competition, the tug went
into a 45 degree RH bank into a thermal at 600'. Took a few
milliseconds to regain my equilibrium!!

Only had one other experience of concern when an experienced tuggie
persuaded me to undertake an outlanding retrieve (from a remote
airfield) using a 35 meter rope - an experience I didn't enjoy and
wouldn't recommend.

Overall, aerotowing with the belly hook hasn't presented any
difficulties worth worrying about and well-intentioned (doom and
gloom) predictions by instructors and winch drivers fortunately have
proved groundless.

Geoff Vincent
Mangalore Gliding Club
Australia

VH-GAX


Right on Geoff, I hate short ropes. Most of the problems with belly
hooks and aerotow go away if you use a decent length of rope. 55
meters is a little too short though. About 240 feet is about right.
One of the nearby clubs started doing this and after some time, one
day one of the old shorter ropes came out and was used. After a couple
of tows the tugpilot went back to the hangar to get the long rope. He
could tell how much easier the glider pilots found the long rope.

Mike Borgelt

I have experience of two different kinds aerotowing from a CG hook:

1. Launching an LS4 (tailskid) from an unmade (dirt, gravel, rocks) runway.
The problem here was directional control, with the glider snaking around
until there was enough speed for the rudder to counter the crosswind. Not a
real problem but hard work for 2 or 3 seconds. Hand on release in case the
direction of tug and glider get too far apart.

2. Launching my Open Cirrus (tailwheel) from a paved runway. Absolutely no
directional control problems at all. By the time the tailwheel is lifting,
the rudder is working. Just be aware of the possibility of swinging once the
tail comes up - whether there's any swing will probably vary between glider
types, but I've never noticed anything with the Cirrus.

There is, for all CG hook aerotows, the danger that if the glider gets high
it will begin to winch launch itself. I'm told this will pull the tug tail
up and cause more excitement than anyone wants (or worse than excitement if
low down). Neither the LS4 nor the Cirrus showed any signs of doing so, but
I kept a watch on the tug position ready to release if it got away from me.

On Thu, 24 Jul 2003 13:02:00 +0100, "Chris Reed"
wrote:

I have experience of two different kinds aerotowing from a CG hook:

1. Launching an LS4 (tailskid) from an unmade (dirt, gravel, rocks) runway.
The problem here was directional control, with the glider snaking around
until there was enough speed for the rudder to counter the crosswind. Not a
real problem but hard work for 2 or 3 seconds. Hand on release in case the
direction of tug and glider get too far apart.

2. Launching my Open Cirrus (tailwheel) from a paved runway. Absolutely no
directional control problems at all. By the time the tailwheel is lifting,
the rudder is working. Just be aware of the possibility of swinging once the
tail comes up - whether there's any swing will probably vary between glider
types, but I've never noticed anything with the Cirrus.

There is, for all CG hook aerotows, the danger that if the glider gets high
it will begin to winch launch itself. I'm told this will pull the tug tail
up and cause more excitement than anyone wants (or worse than excitement if
low down). Neither the LS4 nor the Cirrus showed any signs of doing so, but
I kept a watch on the tug position ready to release if it got away from me.

Sounds like excellent justification to fly low tow.

Geoff Vincent
Australia

Geoff Vincent wrote in message . ..
On Thu, 24 Jul 2003 13:02:00 +0100, "Chris Reed"
wrote:

I have experience of two different kinds aerotowing from a CG hook:

1. Launching an LS4 (tailskid) from an unmade (dirt, gravel, rocks) runway.
The problem here was directional control, with the glider snaking around
until there was enough speed for the rudder to counter the crosswind. Not a
real problem but hard work for 2 or 3 seconds. Hand on release in case the
direction of tug and glider get too far apart.

2. Launching my Open Cirrus (tailwheel) from a paved runway. Absolutely no
directional control problems at all. By the time the tailwheel is lifting,
the rudder is working. Just be aware of the possibility of swinging once the
tail comes up - whether there's any swing will probably vary between glider
types, but I've never noticed anything with the Cirrus.

There is, for all CG hook aerotows, the danger that if the glider gets high
it will begin to winch launch itself. I'm told this will pull the tug tail
up and cause more excitement than anyone wants (or worse than excitement if
low down). Neither the LS4 nor the Cirrus showed any signs of doing so, but
I kept a watch on the tug position ready to release if it got away from me.

Sounds like excellent justification to fly low tow.

Geoff Vincent
Australia



Geoff
Completely agree.
Low tow easier to fly, easier to teach,never have broken a rope in
over 30,000 tows at our operation, and---------
NOBODY EVER DOVE A TOWPILOT INTO THE GROUND IN LOW TOW!
9500 low tows and counting
UH

"Chris Reed" wrote
I have experience of two different kinds aerotowing from a CG hook:

1. Launching an LS4 (tailskid) from an unmade (dirt, gravel, rocks) runway.
The problem here was directional control, with the glider snaking around
until there was enough speed for the rudder to counter the crosswind. Not a
real problem but hard work for 2 or 3 seconds. Hand on release in case the
direction of tug and glider get too far apart.

My experience with a cg-hook HP-11T (fixed tailwheel, no swiveling or
steering)mirrors yours, but with the added problem of a wing wanting
to drop and requiring prompt rudder input. I've launched from rough
grass and pavement. Had to release once for the resons you state.

Once in the air, no big deal.

Michael

Tom..
Why would you choose to transfer from normal to low
tow...just say below propwash from the start...always
done it ..always taught it..NEVER had a problem..why
endanger your mate in the tow plane?


At 07:54 25 July 2003, Tom Serkowski wrote:
The key issue here is that 90% of the danger to the
towpilot from a
ballooning sailplane occurs before one has enough altitude
to get into
low tow. Granted, there may be a 'mindset' of the
glider pilot to
stay low, so there may be a little less incentive to
get high on the
tow while both are still less than 50' AGL or so.

Tom

Sleigh wrote in message news:...
At 13:54 24 July 2003, Geoff Vincent wrote:
On Thu, 24 Jul 2003 13:02:00 +0100, 'Chris Reed'

Sounds like excellent justification to fly low tow.


Geoff Vincent
Australia


Geoff

You know that suggestion is, far too sensible and
practical
,for this group


Low tow fan..England