1201 & Tow Planes

The Soaring Club of Houston and the Houston TRACON have recently
agreed to allow tow planes to squawk 1201 during towing operations.
The ATC sector manager agrees that it is a good idea and it is worth
trying for a couple of months. After the trial period, our club and
TRACON will talk to review the results.

Is anybody else using 1201 in their towplanes?

Thanks,
Jamie
Soaring Club of Houston

My initial post did not include my reasoning for tow planes squawking
1201 - I was ham handedly typing on my iPhone.

My reasoning for tow planes squawking 1201 WHEN DIRECTLY INVOLVED IN
TOWING OPERATIONS is as follows:

The Soaring Club of Houston is 4 miles from Houston's Class B.

Tow planes are flying from the highest glider density area
(gliderport) into moderately dense glider area(about 4 miles of
gliderport) during tows - very few of the gliders have transponders so
the tow plane indicates to TRACON that gliders are active in the area.
The few gliders that have transponders will occasionally & randomly
(just by topping out in the thermal) indicate to TRACON the max
heights of the thermals for the day.

Half of the time that the tow plane is in the air it is attached to a
glider without a transponder. Only 4 of SCOH's gliders out of approx
30 gliders have transponders.

The other half of the time it is descending through glider(almost none
transponder equipped) dense airspace.

On a good soaring day, tow planes are dropping gliders off in or near
thermals with many gliders in them - with almost no transponder
equipped gliders.

In general, the towplane is very close to many other gliders and very
few of those gliders have transponders.

On Sep 10, 5:41*pm, Jamie Shore wrote:
My initial post did not include my reasoning for tow planes squawking
1201 - I was ham handedly typing on my iPhone.

My reasoning for tow planes squawking 1201 WHEN DIRECTLY INVOLVED IN
TOWING OPERATIONS is as follows:

The Soaring Club of Houston is 4 miles from Houston's Class B.

Tow planes are flying from the highest glider density area
(gliderport) into moderately dense glider area(about 4 miles of
gliderport) during tows - very few of the gliders have transponders so
the tow plane indicates to TRACON that gliders are active in the area.
The few gliders that have transponders will occasionally & randomly
(just by topping out in the thermal) indicate to TRACON the max
heights of the thermals for the day.

Half of the time that the tow plane is in the air it is attached to a
glider without a transponder. Only 4 of SCOH's gliders out of approx
30 gliders have transponders.

The other half of the time it is descending through glider(almost none
transponder equipped) dense airspace.

On a good soaring day, tow planes are dropping gliders off in or near
thermals with many gliders in them - with almost no transponder
equipped gliders.

In general, the towplane is very close to many other gliders and very
few of those gliders have transponders.

Maybe more of your gliders need to get transponders if you're that
close to Class B. Our gliders at the San Antonio club all have
transponders and it certainly helps with the traffic going in and out
of San Antonio International.

I agree completely that more of our gliders should have transponders
but that is out of my control and not my question.

Does anybody use 1201 in their towplanes when actively engaged in
towing gliders?

Thanks,
Jamie

On Sep 12, 3:37*pm, Jamie Shore wrote:
I agree completely that more of our gliders should have transponders
but that is out of my control and not my question.

Does anybody use 1201 in their towplanes when actively engaged in
towing gliders?

Thanks,
Jamie

I'm the chief towpilot for SASSI in San Antonio. The tow plane
squawks 1200 and the gliders squawk 1201.

At Philadelphia Glider Council we've had an agreement with Willow
Grove NAS for quite a few years for our towplanes to squawk 1202. We
made an arrangement this spring with PHL for our gliders to squawk
1201. We'll need to do something about the towplane squawk next
season, as Willow Grove is permanently closing on Mar 31, 2011.

-John

On Sep 10, 8:00 am, Jamie Shore wrote:
The Soaring Club of Houston and the Houston TRACON have recently
agreed to allow tow planes to squawk 1201 during towing operations.
The ATC sector manager agrees that it is a good idea and it is worth
trying for a couple of months. After the trial period, our club and
TRACON will talk to review the results.

Is anybody else using 1201 in their towplanes?

Thanks,
Jamie
Soaring Club of Houston