Killing the flagman at US Contest

On Tuesday, July 1, 2014 10:39:05 AM UTC-5, Dan Marotta wrote:
How about a light bar or light gun? Red - Stop/Hold, Yellow - Takeup

Slack, Green - GO!



Or car headlights? Steady on - Takeup Slack, Flashing - GO!



Now for my pet towing peeve: Takeup slack, STOP, GO. There's no need

to stop. The glider should be ready to launch when the rope is

attached. If the pilot needs more time, he should not have the rope

attached until he is ready. Or he should find another hobby. Rant off.



Dan Marotta

Dan, I totally agree! The more complicated we make the launch process, the more chance for miscommunication and mistakes to happen.

Best solution (non-contest): RADIOS! Glider pilot says READY, tuggie says HERE WE GO. Back it up with wings level (if possible - sometimes you have to do a wing-down launch, so even that isn't a show stopper) and a vigorous rudder waggle from the glider, answered by the tug, then go.

Otherwise, I agree that once hooked up, the glider should be ready to go as soon as the rope is attached. Once the slack is taken up, the wing should be leveled and tug looks for the rudder waggle, then goes - or else the wing is dropped and the rope released.

If you can't see the rope and glider rudder from your towplane, you need better mirrors! We use a Supercub and a Pawnee and in both the rope and glider rudders are easy to see.

And I've had wing runners try to launch with the wing down, or the back canopy on a Blanik open, or the slack not out, etc - they are often students and can't be trusted! The ONLY person who can determine if the launch should go is the glider pilot, so I want to see or hear his decision to go.

Kirk

Thanks for the comments. I don't really care much how we do it as long as we get the darn flagman out of the picture.

I would say that having attended a couple contests where Barb Smith was the radio controller, that works well by my observation. Her duty cycle on the radio was certainly less than 1% so I don't think there was an impact to safety calls on the radio. With respect to the example case of interfering with a safety call from a glider to it's own tug, there wouldn't really be interference. That because the radio signal power from a glider 200 feet away will not be impaired by the signal from a handheld which is a mile or more distant; it's a 1/r^2 matter, the close radio wins. Aircraft radios use simple amplitude modulation.