Tow Pilot Checkouts, Rough-Field Tri-Gears?

On Nov 13, 6:19*pm, T wrote:

Any club trying to maintain more than one tow plane with only 600 tows
per year is going to have financial issues. A Super Cub is a high
capital investment. The concern of grounding for an AD for a single
type (2 Pawnees) is understandable, but the capital investment of the
second tow plane could be higher than the revenue lost while
completing the AD.

T

Thanks for the info on your simulated tow regimen! Can I ask which
club this is?

Our club consistently does ~1300 tows per year. We never seem to use
our towplanes evenly; often the "nicest" Pawnee gets 700-800 tows per
year while the remaining 550-650 are split between the other two
planes (effectively at a loss). My analysis of our club finances
shows that 1300 tows is sufficient to support 2 towplanes as long as
you use them equally (i.e. about 650 tows per plane); but definitely
not 3 towplanes. Just as you've noted, doing less than about 600 tows
per towplane just doesn't make economic sense (the fixed costs are way
too high on a per-tow basis, you'd end up having to charge something
like $65+ for a 3000' tow just to keep up with yearly costs - and at
that rate you're not saving any money for long-term items like
engines, paint, fabric, etc).

--Noel