How high does your club tow?

Tach time seems like a good way to go for high tows, but I won't make any suggestions about what rate to charge, as situations differ. However, for the "normal" tow, which can be low, as for repeated pattern practice, the typical Hobbs meter that only displays in tenths of an hour, a tow could be 0.1 hour or 0.2 hour or even 0.3 hour, depending on how the numbers click over. Tach based charges also have the effect of charging someone for time spent waiting for traffic to clear, slow hook ups and situations where the tow plane is running with no gliders ready, but not so much of a delay that a shutdown and restart is warranted.

Plus, I doubt that the tow pilot really wants to be that much of a bookkeeper. Reading the altimeter is much easier than checking the tiny numbers on the Hobbs, which is often not in an easily viewed place on the instrument panel.

And let's not forget that tow pilots also differ. We had one who ran B-52 sized patterns that added excessive delays to busy day operations.

Our club routinely tows to 3000' AGL (field elevation 537') for student flights, and unfortunately also for most other flights - a lot of glider pilots wouldn't want to hear what I'm saying about them in the cockpit when I take them to a boomer at 2000' AGL and they hang on for dear life, finally releasing in sink at 3000'!

The more experienced pilots usually take a 2000' tow which is plenty, of course, without a ridge to use (rare in our part of Illinois)

I've taken high tows on occasions to do acro, but not when there is a crowd waiting to fly - usually a flat calm day anyway.

The trouble with using time for tows is that every tow pilot takes a different amount of time, either by the way he flies or how aggressively he works lift during the tow. I can usually get two full 3000' ft tows done in the time it takes a few of our "more conservative" tow pilots to complete one tow...

Kirk