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#1
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Motorglider Tug
Who is using a motorglider as a tug? Please send details!
Your location. Country. Field surface, length, elevation, temperatures. What type of tug? What gliders towed? Good, bad, and ugly of using the motorglider. Who insures? Costello, here in America, will not insure a motorglider for towing. Thanks, Ray Lovinggood Carrboro, North Carolina, USA |
#2
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Most motor gliders of the "Katana Extreme" variety do not have enough
"oomph" (HPower) to get a regular glider into the air. You may find that some have done duty to tow ultralights aloft. Check out the USHGA web pages. Most motorgliders (older types) do not have enough HP to get them selves into the air on hot high days here in the mid-west. Although I do understand that the DG808B does very well, but the Grob109 is very anemic. I've read reports that the older DG400 was "doable" at a very poor climb rate. BT "Ray Lovinggood" wrote in message ... Who is using a motorglider as a tug? Please send details! Your location. Country. Field surface, length, elevation, temperatures. What type of tug? What gliders towed? Good, bad, and ugly of using the motorglider. Who insures? Costello, here in America, will not insure a motorglider for towing. Thanks, Ray Lovinggood Carrboro, North Carolina, USA |
#3
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BTIZ wrote:
Most motor gliders of the "Katana Extreme" variety do not have enough "oomph" (HPower) to get a regular glider into the air. You may find that Wrong. We're using the Katana Extreme itself (100 oomph, which isn't even the strongest one you can get) for towing in Niederoeblarn (concrete, 700m runway, 650m elevation, up to 35 degrees Celsius). Up to moderately loaded glass single seaters. Also possible for light dual seaters. some have done duty to tow ultralights aloft. Check out the USHGA web pages. Ultralights themselves are used to tow gliders hereabouts. There was a towing competition in Zell am See recently, and the best ultralight was comparable to a Husky (don't remember how many oopmh). Cheers -Gerhard -- Gerhard Wesp o o Tel.: +41 (0) 43 5347636 Bachtobelstrasse 56 | http://www.cosy.sbg.ac.at/~gwesp/ CH-8045 Zuerich \_/ See homepage for email address! |
#4
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My Ex-Club has bought a Scheibe SF-25 with a Rotax 100HP. They do tow with
this and it seems to work. The field is only 830m long. I don't know if they do it on a regular basis, because normally they use a whinch. Here is a fotograph of the SF-25 towing a ASK-21 if I am right: http://www.segelflug.de/vereine/gram...ik/schlepp.jpg Sebastian -- Sebastian Fischer |
#5
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I know that the faulkes foundation use a falke to tow their DG505s arround
see http://www.fffoundation.co.uk/mgliders.html for info rgds Stephen "Ray Lovinggood" wrote in message ... Who is using a motorglider as a tug? Please send details! Your location. Country. Field surface, length, elevation, temperatures. What type of tug? What gliders towed? Good, bad, and ugly of using the motorglider. Who insures? Costello, here in America, will not insure a motorglider for towing. Thanks, Ray Lovinggood Carrboro, North Carolina, USA |
#6
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In article , Stephen Haley
writes I know that the faulkes foundation use a falke to tow their DG505s arround see http://www.fffoundation.co.uk/mgliders.html It must be pointed out that this is the 105 hp "Rotax Falke", not the original Scheibe Falke with the 45hp Stamo engine! We also have a Rotax Falke at Lasham with a tow hook and occasionally use it for towing light gliders like K-6 and glass 15m ships. Lasham is a 2000 yard field in the E/W direction. However, we have a fleet of 5 dedicated tug aircraft as well. So the Rotax Falke does not get used that much for towing, but is for exercises in field landing, navigation and soaring generally. Its handling in a thermal is better than earlier Falke designs and it goes up reasonably well engine-off, even in our weak English thermals. Where it loses out to a straight glider is in L/D. A very useful instructional aircraft, though, and at a small gliding club with a reasonable length of field, can be used as a standby towplane, perhaps when the main towplane is out for servicing or when a large queue develops for tows. I would not use it as the sole towplane but buy a second-hand towplane to take the main air tow load at the field. -- Ian Strachan Lasham Gliding Centre, UK |
#7
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BTIZ wrote:
Most motor gliders of the "Katana Extreme" variety do not have enough "oomph" (HPower) to get a regular glider into the air. I don't know where you read this. Here in Europe, Super Dimonas (aka Katana Extremes) are very commonly used as tug planes. Mostly the 115hp version. Climb is not breathtaking, but it surely works even with two seaters. Stefan |
#8
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Culdrose gliding club (Cornwall, England) uses a Dimona (S?) as a tug. Very
pleased with it. If you have any contatcs there, might be worth an email. Keith "Ray Lovinggood" wrote in message ... Who is using a motorglider as a tug? Please send details! Your location. Country. Field surface, length, elevation, temperatures. What type of tug? What gliders towed? Good, bad, and ugly of using the motorglider. Who insures? Costello, here in America, will not insure a motorglider for towing. Thanks, Ray Lovinggood Carrboro, North Carolina, USA |
#9
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650M in elevation is approximately 1800-2000ft?
take that up to 3000ft or more on a 45C day.. our 235HP tow with a heavy 2 seat glider can manage about 400fpm rate of climb, now add some down draft (sink) or rotor and I've actually had negative climb rates.. I would not want to be doing that in a 100hp tug BT "Gerhard Wesp" wrote in message ... BTIZ wrote: Most motor gliders of the "Katana Extreme" variety do not have enough "oomph" (HPower) to get a regular glider into the air. You may find that Wrong. We're using the Katana Extreme itself (100 oomph, which isn't even the strongest one you can get) for towing in Niederoeblarn (concrete, 700m runway, 650m elevation, up to 35 degrees Celsius). Up to moderately loaded glass single seaters. Also possible for light dual seaters. some have done duty to tow ultralights aloft. Check out the USHGA web pages. Ultralights themselves are used to tow gliders hereabouts. There was a towing competition in Zell am See recently, and the best ultralight was comparable to a Husky (don't remember how many oopmh). Cheers -Gerhard -- Gerhard Wesp o o Tel.: +41 (0) 43 5347636 Bachtobelstrasse 56 | http://www.cosy.sbg.ac.at/~gwesp/ CH-8045 Zuerich \_/ See homepage for email address! |
#10
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BTIZ wrote:
Most motor gliders of the "Katana Extreme" variety do not have enough "oomph" (HPower) to get a regular glider into the air. You may find that some have done duty to tow ultralights aloft. Check out the USHGA web pages. Most motorgliders (older types) do not have enough HP to get them selves into the air on hot high days here in the mid-west. Although I do understand that the DG808B does very well, but the Grob109 is very anemic. I've read reports that the older DG400 was "doable" at a very poor climb rate. BT "Ray Lovinggood" wrote in message ... Who is using a motorglider as a tug? Please send details! Your location. Country. Field surface, length, elevation, temperatures. What type of tug? What gliders towed? Good, bad, and ugly of using the motorglider. Who insures? Costello, here in America, will not insure a motorglider for towing. Thanks, Ray Lovinggood Carrboro, North Carolina, USA Urban Air Samba and Lambada do quite well, apparently the Pipistrel Sinus is also quite good. One reason being that despite lower horesepower, they are flying in their noraml operating speed range when towing. As opposed to many of the other types that are right at the lower end of their speed range and have high induced drag at towing speeds... They are 60 year newer designs than the Cubs for example, and hence benefit from better efficiency too. |
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