How high does your club tow?

On Sunday, August 26, 2018 at 11:29:18 AM UTC-4, Dan Marotta wrote:
Hi Raul,

I would simply tell them, "NO".Â* Glider pilots should be able to gain
height on their own.Â* Or use tach time to calculate the tow rate and
tell them that they must wait until all others have launched.

On 8/26/2018 7:15 AM, wrote:
Our Club is reworking towing height fees. We are based south of Denver (elevation 7,000' msl). Normal tow heights are to about 9,000-10,000' msl. We have new members who now are asking for tows to 14,000' msl. This is causing up to 45-minute waits for the next tow. Normally, we get about four or five tows per hours, but a high altitude tow drops us to two tows per hour..

How high does your club allow for tows?


Raul Boerner

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Dan, 5J

I am so glad to see this subject being discussed, I will add my two cents worth. There are a few considerations in the determination of how high to tow. Location is a factor and for those in some of these locations this will not apply.
I have always been a proponent of a reasonable tow release point, and I always adhere to that theory. I was taught back in the 70's and you better get your tail off tow at 2000 feet AGL or suffer the consequences of a tongue lashing from Rudy. During my early years I soon learned that getting off tow early and building confidence by staying up was a great way to develop my skills.
Things sure have changed through the years and now I see people taking tows that are not only unnecessary, but damn right stupid. Seems like liberals have taken over the reasonable tow release altitude. I can just hear it, some mother saying, "Tow my little Johnny to 10K, he needs a fair chance and a trophy"!
What is reasonable for a release altitude? If it is a club there should be some guidelines as to the release altitude that works for the club. I live in Florida, and I think that 2000 AGL is the normal tow altitude, with the exception to intro rides and some training.
I have recently put my foot down and informed the tow pilot that there is no need to tow people to the height's that they have requested. I have even been told that some people like to be towed to cloud base, are you kidding me! Where in the world do these attitudes come from?
As a rule of thumb there should always be a prescribed altitude for tow release. If a tow pilot tells you to hang on till he or she gets you to the next cloud then so be it. The main benefit in a reasonable tow release is the life of the tow plane and the increased number of flights for the day. What do you think you club average is from wheel up to wheel down on a 2K tow? It should be somewhere in the vicinity of six to seven minutes.
Now I come to the best part of this who discussion. If you cannot get off tow at a reasonable altitude and stay up, then you need to take up something like sailing or bowling. I pride myself on getting off early, I guess I am just part of the old guard. Bob

They are towing to 42k in Argentina!

On Monday, August 27, 2018 at 4:20:19 PM UTC-4, Santiago Lopez wrote:
They are towing to 42k in Argentina!

Paul Bikle would be laughing at being towed to 42K

Paul Bikle would be laughing at being towed to 42K

Bob- You have to understand the reasoning behind the 42k tow performed by the Perlan project. This is a research program intended to explore the potential of high altitude stratospheric mountain wave. Previous tows have been to around 5,000 and then using the primary wave structure, altitudes up to 40k and 50k (with a World Record at over 52k) have been achieved. However, the transition from 30k to 50k has been troublesome and time consuming. Perlan has a large electrical demand, including telemetry, scientific instrumentation and, most importantly, life support. Battery capacity has been increased, but with eight hour flights planned on the way to the targeted 90k, reserve electrical capacity could drop below what is considered necessary to provide a margin of safety for essential systems. The 42k tows are intended to get the aircraft to the target wave height so that more efficient use of time (and daylight) can possibly help Perlan reach the goal of flight at 90k. Perhaps some rare condition will develop that can allow for a "low tow" and then climb into the upper atmosphere in the Polar Vortex, but for now, high tows behind the Egrett are deemed a more efficient use of resources to achieve the mission goals.

I am not connected with the Perlan Project, except as being friends with many of the participants, so any errors in the above explanation are mine alone. Best of luck to Perlan, and congratulations on the 62k altitude flight!

On Monday, August 27, 2018 at 7:10:44 PM UTC-4, wrote:
Paul Bikle would be laughing at being towed to 42K

Bob- You have to understand the reasoning behind the 42k tow performed by the Perlan project. This is a research program intended to explore the potential of high altitude stratospheric mountain wave. Previous tows have been to around 5,000 and then using the primary wave structure, altitudes up to 40k and 50k (with a World Record at over 52k) have been achieved. However, the transition from 30k to 50k has been troublesome and time consuming. Perlan has a large electrical demand, including telemetry, scientific instrumentation and, most importantly, life support. Battery capacity has been increased, but with eight hour flights planned on the way to the targeted 90k, reserve electrical capacity could drop below what is considered necessary to provide a margin of safety for essential systems. The 42k tows are intended to get the aircraft to the target wave height so that more efficient use of time (and daylight) can possibly help Perlan reach the goal of flight at 90k. Perhaps some rare condition will develop that can allow for a "low tow" and then climb into the upper atmosphere in the Polar Vortex, but for now, high tows behind the Egrett are deemed a more efficient use of resources to achieve the mission goals.

I am not connected with the Perlan Project, except as being friends with many of the participants, so any errors in the above explanation are mine alone. Best of luck to Perlan, and congratulations on the 62k altitude flight!

Low tow to the polar vortex would be much more impressive. If they have gone from 5 K to 52 K with a low tow it looks like the only constraints are time and electricity. I would really like to see the low tow to 90K ,you would probably agree. Bob

On Mon, 27 Aug 2018 16:10:42 -0700, markmocho53 wrote:

I am not connected with the Perlan Project, except as being friends with
many of the participants, so any errors in the above explanation are
mine alone. Best of luck to Perlan, and congratulations on the 62k
altitude flight!

I have even less connection to the project (if possible), but I was
curious about the rules for Absolute altitude records, so I visited the
FAI website and looked them up.

The rules only say 'climb more than 5000m above release height' and
(obviously) the claimed height must exceed the last claim by some margin.
I didn't look at that, so don't know what the margin is. So, as the most
recent flight released at about 40,000ft and got to 62000+, it just
boosted the record by around 10,000 ft.

Jolly Good Show, Chaps!


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Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org