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Auto-Towing - why is this not more popular?



 
 
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  #21  
Old October 5th 15, 04:56 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Dan Marotta
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Posts: 4,601
Default Auto-Towing - why is this not more popular?

At the Las Vegas tow weekend, they have a release mounted to the
receiver of the vehicle and the release rope routed to the observer.

On 10/5/2015 8:11 AM, wrote:
On Monday, October 5, 2015 at 7:40:06 AM UTC-5, Papa3 wrote:
On Monday, October 5, 2015 at 8:30:06 AM UTC-4, Tango Eight wrote:

When I was a student pilot, we did 2-33 "cat shots" off Harris Hill with two old tow ropes spliced together, later with a proper 400' cable, into gentle late afternoon ridge lift, all powered by an old 307 Chevelle with questionable brakes (thanks Dave!). A total gas, never to be forgotten. Driving the car (which I did a lot) was even more exciting than flying the glider. The brow of the hill slopes off in a fashion that makes the nerves a little uneasy... especially with those rusty four wheel drum brakes.

-Evan Ludeman / T8

That reminded me. The far end of our runway had a steep dropoff into a corn field. On one tow, as I eased off the gas and got on the brakes... there weren't any. Or not much. Went all Dukes of Hazard and luckily landed safely on the downslope, ending up with the hood in the corn. Funny now, but actually a pretty dicey situation. So driver/observer safety in the tow vehicle is definitely another consideration depending on the field conditions/configuration.

All the winches I flew on in Europe had guillotines to cut the cable in an emergency (mandated in Germany). How do you do that with cars? I witnessed a near fatal accident with hanglider being towed by a car where the pilot flew a neat arc that ended with an impact. When I asked the person on the bed of the towing pickup how he had planned to sever the rope in such an event, he showed me his pocket knife!


--
Dan, 5J
  #22  
Old October 5th 15, 06:27 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Sean Fidler
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Posts: 1,005
Default Auto-Towing - why is this not more popular?

Wow! Great posts. I'll need time to read it all. Thanks.

We have an auto-tow rig in Ionia that has been used on rare occasion. Recently, a clinic was done in Cadillac and it was quite successful from what I understand. A number of people got sign offs, etc. But then it died again.
  #23  
Old October 5th 15, 06:33 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Ross Briegleb
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Posts: 2
Default Auto-Towing - why is this not more popular?

At 11:24 05 October 2015, Burt Compton - Marfa Gliders, west Texas wrote:
Chapter 3 of the classic American Soaring Handbook has about 23 pages on
Au=
to Tow with several illustrations including a homebuilt car tow release
and=
a technical discussion of the process. 3,500' of runway is the minimum
ru=
nway length suggested so the sailplane can (barely) make a 360 degree
circl=
e to land. Straight-line auto tow and auto tow with pulley are discussed
i=
n detail. =20

As simple as it appears, auto tow should be carefully researched. Finding
a=
sailplane pilot who has supervised auto tow is essential. A
ground-launch=
endorsement from an authorized CFI per FAR 61.31(j) is required for the
sa=
ilplane pilot unless "grandfathered" however proficiency is essential for
b=
oth the pilot and the driver. An observer in the auto is important for
saf=
ety. Density altitude will affect the power of the auto motor and the
spee=
d required for the sailplane to launch.

One possible issue with auto tow on airports with airplane traffic is

that
=
the cable cannot be reeled in unless a winch system is mounted on the

back
=
of a pick-up truck. Some of the hang glider folks have developed this
syst=
em.=20

Read the article in the May-June 1955 SOARING magazine, "The Elimination
of=
Guess-Work in Auto Towing" by Otto Zauner and Art Heavener. =20

The American Soaring Handbook was a binder of 10 chapters on essential
aspe=
cts that a SSA club needed to know about maintenance, auto, winch and
aerot=
ow launching, instruments and much more. Long out of print this handy
6"x9=
" blue binder might be found on dusty bookshelves in gliderport

clubhouses
=
around the USA. Often listed on E-bay and internet book searches such as
A=
lbris, this valuable collection of knowledge written by some of the
legends=
of soaring is essential reading. About $25 if all of the 10 chapters

are
=
included in the binder.

For an entertaining (but not instructional) video of auto tow watch the
"Re=
union" episode of the '50's Sci-Fi TV show, "One Step Beyond".
Yep, my dad was the glider pilot and I was the tow car driver . I was

fifteen then. Ross

Ross Briegleb

  #24  
Old October 5th 15, 06:41 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
[email protected]
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Posts: 580
Default Auto-Towing - why is this not more popular?

IIRC, in the old days a ground launch signoff was required before the commercial glider test. We would do it once a year at the Soaring Society of Dayton (now Caesar Creek Soaring Club) at our Richmond, IN airport, which had 3 paved runways, including two with paved taxiways that we operated off of. 5000-5500'. This was the late 1960s and the age of the big block V-8 horsepower wars so someone always seemed eager to volunteer their vehicle to show it off (probably not a second time, though). We got high enough to do a full pattern in a 2-22. Because it conflicted with our normal ops, we tended to pick an overcast day, fairly calm. A Schweizer tow hook was mounted on the hitch ball and someone sat in the back to pull the cord if necessary. I don't think it was hinged to track the wire direction so I suspect it would have been difficult to release under load. The only drama was how fast the glider climbed compared with aerotow. The biggest problem was the old wire breaking every few tows. It was a big deal to lay everything out and splice the wire a few times so we never did it more than was necessary to get the ground launch sign off for whomever was going up for their test.

I've had a couple of auto pulley tows. Wild! Aileron control before the wing runner even takes a step. These were just to get high enough from a grass strip to turn out over the ridge so I don't know what it's like for a full tow.

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"
U.S.A.

  #25  
Old October 5th 15, 07:52 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Dan Marotta
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Posts: 4,601
Default Auto-Towing - why is this not more popular?

Tow pilot lobby? Ha!

Send them to Moriarty so I can step down from towing. It may be fun for
time builders or youngsters but, for me, it's just plain underpaid work
which takes time away from my soaring.

On 10/5/2015 11:27 AM, Sean Fidler wrote:
Wow! Great posts. I'll need time to read it all. Thanks.

We have an auto-tow rig in Ionia that has been used on rare occasion. Recently, a clinic was done in Cadillac and it was quite successful from what I understand. A number of people got sign offs, etc. But then it died again.

My honest opinion. Aerotowing is popular because the tow pilot lobby likes flying tow planes for free, building hours, etc. We should be auto-towing more! Especially in early training. It's a safe, viable and great option and if done with great care (as aero and winch are) it could be really impactful to lowering costs and increasing the number of youth pilots being trained.

I think the public would get a kick out of seeing cars towing up gliders at airports! There is just something cool about it!

Anyway...back to work.


--
Dan, 5J

  #26  
Old October 5th 15, 10:14 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
WB
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Posts: 236
Default Auto-Towing - why is this not more popular?

On Sunday, October 4, 2015 at 11:57:33 PM UTC-5, Sean Fidler wrote:
I had an interesting conversation with a pal about auto-tow glider launching method recently. It seems academic really.


Auto launching can be an economical, if laborious, way to get gliders in the air. My club used to do a lot of auto and winch launching. We did hundreds of auto launches and thousands of winch launches. For auto launch, we used the "pulley in the middle" system with the pulley on the to car, pulling from the middle of the rope. We used about 4000 feet of dacron line. 2:1 mechanical advantage of this system meant that the tow car never had to exceed 28 mph. With 10 mph headwind, our Ka-8 sometimes achieved launches of 2000' agl. We usually got 1400-1600' with the Ka-7 and ASK-21. The tow car was an old Ford Crown Vic that came from a junk yard. We had around 300-400 lbs of bricks in the trunk to keep the wheels from spinning in the later stages of a launch. I think it only ran on 5 cylinders, but it produced about the perfect amount of power for launching the 2 seaters. Put it in low gear and just push the accelerator smoothly to the floor. The glider would be airborne in about the same distance as a winch launch. The car would get to about 28 mph and by then the glider was beginning to pitch up. With the pedal all the way to the floor, a 2-seater glider in a steep climb would begin to slowly decelerate the car. This resulted in launches with very close to the perfect speed in the climb. We would be down below 25 mph with the glider at the top of the launch. Letting off the gas made for a very short stop.. The rope usually back released at that point. Made it easy peasy to launch two seaters. With the single place birds, we'd have to go a little easier on the throttle to keep speed below 30 at the car. Still, it was very easy to drive the launch as long as the pilot pitched up correctly.

Recovery of the rope was a bit fiddly and was the time consuming part of it all. We were at the end of the runway at the end of the launch, so we could not continue on to pull the rope down to the car. The rope just fell wherever. We had no chute on it anyway. We'd recover and straighten the line by putting it back on the pulley then having the anchor vehicle tow the other end of the rope to the launch point. We could do a launch every 10 minutes if we hustled. Usually it was more like 15 minutes per launch.

We always had two people in the car. A driver and an observer. The observers job was to keep an eye on the glider and relay info to the driver. The observer also had a very sharp machete with which to cut the rope should the glider be unable to release.

Our pulley system was just a truck wheel mounted on a steel arm that fit into an hitch receiver.
  #27  
Old October 5th 15, 10:53 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Ramy[_2_]
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Default Auto-Towing - why is this not more popular?

On Monday, October 5, 2015 at 2:14:51 PM UTC-7, WB wrote:
On Sunday, October 4, 2015 at 11:57:33 PM UTC-5, Sean Fidler wrote:
I had an interesting conversation with a pal about auto-tow glider launching method recently. It seems academic really.


Auto launching can be an economical, if laborious, way to get gliders in the air. My club used to do a lot of auto and winch launching. We did hundreds of auto launches and thousands of winch launches. For auto launch, we used the "pulley in the middle" system with the pulley on the to car, pulling from the middle of the rope. We used about 4000 feet of dacron line. 2:1 mechanical advantage of this system meant that the tow car never had to exceed 28 mph. With 10 mph headwind, our Ka-8 sometimes achieved launches of 2000' agl. We usually got 1400-1600' with the Ka-7 and ASK-21. The tow car was an old Ford Crown Vic that came from a junk yard. We had around 300-400 lbs of bricks in the trunk to keep the wheels from spinning in the later stages of a launch. I think it only ran on 5 cylinders, but it produced about the perfect amount of power for launching the 2 seaters. Put it in low gear and just push the accelerator smoothly to the floor. The glider would be airborne in about the same distance as a winch launch. The car would get to about 28 mph and by then the glider was beginning to pitch up. With the pedal all the way to the floor, a 2-seater glider in a steep climb would begin to slowly decelerate the car. This resulted in launches with very close to the perfect speed in the climb. We would be down below 25 mph with the glider at the top of the launch. Letting off the gas made for a very short stop. The rope usually back released at that point. Made it easy peasy to launch two seaters. With the single place birds, we'd have to go a little easier on the throttle to keep speed below 30 at the car. Still, it was very easy to drive the launch as long as the pilot pitched up correctly.

Recovery of the rope was a bit fiddly and was the time consuming part of it all. We were at the end of the runway at the end of the launch, so we could not continue on to pull the rope down to the car. The rope just fell wherever. We had no chute on it anyway. We'd recover and straighten the line by putting it back on the pulley then having the anchor vehicle tow the other end of the rope to the launch point. We could do a launch every 10 minutes if we hustled. Usually it was more like 15 minutes per launch.

We always had two people in the car. A driver and an observer. The observers job was to keep an eye on the glider and relay info to the driver. The observer also had a very sharp machete with which to cut the rope should the glider be unable to release.

Our pulley system was just a truck wheel mounted on a steel arm that fit into an hitch receiver.


At least in most soaring sites in California, auto towing (as well as winch) will provide affordable sled rides at best. The lift is typically in the mountains 5-30 miles away. The only exceptions I can think of is Avenal and maybe Crazy Creek.

Ramy
  #28  
Old October 5th 15, 11:13 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Tom (2N0)
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Default Auto-Towing - why is this not more popular?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0k...ew?usp=sharing

Car tow hitch with release
  #29  
Old October 5th 15, 11:38 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
[email protected]
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Default Auto-Towing - why is this not more popular?

On Monday, October 5, 2015 at 2:53:27 PM UTC-7, Ramy wrote:
At least in most soaring sites in California, auto towing (as well as winch) will provide affordable sled rides at best. The lift is typically in the mountains 5-30 miles away. The only exceptions I can think of is Avenal and maybe Crazy Creek.


Affordable sled rides make for affordable training. And, the whole reason we tried (and ultimately failed) to get a winch operating at Crazy Creek is that lift is easily accessible from 2000 feet above the field on nearly all soarable days.
  #30  
Old October 6th 15, 12:59 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
WB
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Default Auto-Towing - why is this not more popular?

On Monday, October 5, 2015 at 12:27:24 PM UTC-5, Sean Fidler wrote:
Wow! Great posts. I'll need time to read it all. Thanks.

We have an auto-tow rig in Ionia that has been used on rare occasion. Recently, a clinic was done in Cadillac and it was quite successful from what I understand. A number of people got sign offs, etc. But then it died again.

My honest opinion. Aerotowing is popular because the tow pilot lobby likes flying tow planes for free, building hours, etc. We should be auto-towing more! Especially in early training. It's a safe, viable and great option and if done with great care (as aero and winch are) it could be really impactful to lowering costs and increasing the number of youth pilots being trained.

I think the public would get a kick out of seeing cars towing up gliders at airports! There is just something cool about it!

Anyway...back to work.



I'm an enthusiastic advocate of ground launching, however, at least in the U.S., tow planes provide operational flexibility that winches and auto launch do not. Towplanes can operate out of fields that are too short/narrow for ground launch operations (getting your winch line out of trees is no fun).. Try to take a winch somewhere besides the home field. It can be anything but straightforward to insure a winch for transport and operation anywhere but your home field. Getting permission for ground launching at a different field can be difficult (someone else mentioned in another thread about the lost opportunity to have glider operations to ever be accepted as normal in the U.S.). Not to mention being able to choose a launch height, aero retrieve/transport of gliders, contest towing, etc.

We do need more ground launching in the U.S., but most of our clubs and commercial ops cannot afford time and/or money to do both aerotow and ground launch other than as an occasional exercise.
 




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