Advertising for tow pilots

Originally Posted by Burt Compton - Marfa Gliders, west Texas

On Thursday, September 24, 2015 at 10:41:41 AM UTC-5, Tony wrote:
I'd suggest you sell the Pawnee and buy a nice clean 182.

In my soaring operation in west Texas I've used Cessna 182's for decades. I grew up towing with Cubs in Miami but I'm instructing in the sailplane most of the time so I wanted towplanes that most any proficient pilot could fly. (Even so, not all qualify when attempting my towpilot initial and recurrent endorsements.) The tricycle gear 1958 or 1959 "square tail" C-182 handles crosswinds and dust devils better than a tailwheel towplane for the obvious reasons and tows very well at our high elevation at Marfa (5,000' msl plus density altitude.) No cooling issues. My west Texas "winter towplane" is a tricycle gear Cessna 150 with a 180 HP Lycoming engine. Not your momma's 150 and fun to fly!

Towing is not for everybody. It can be dangerous flying mostly due to inattention of the sailplane pilot behind you, occasionally flying too high and kiting on tow. Ask me how I know.

While I'm at it . . . Diving the towplane after release is quite dangerous especially to sailplanes below release altitude. Lost a good friend in 1980 who was hit in his ASW-20 by a towplane diving down from above. Cut his elevator off with the towrope. Towpilot didn't see him against the ground clutter and was diving so fast he could not turn at the last moment. (It's a vector thing.) What's the rush, anyway? Are we flying the US Mail or on a military mission?

Most of the towplanes I launch behind in Europe are tricycle gear Robins & Rallyes.

"The Towpilot Manual" is concise booklet on towing available at www.bobwander.com
Inexpensive and now in the 7th printing.
Also refer to the 24 month re-currency requirements of FAR 61.69. Read it carefully!

Bless the towpilots. I feed, water and pay mine very well so they fly "my way." No rushing to tow, no fast taxiing, no diving. Safe and fun.

Burt, during "the season" it is not uncommon for me to have 15 or more gliders lined up waiting for a tow usually to 2K feet along with training gliders which get to go to the head of the line. THE RUSH is obvious but I will not sacrifice safety for speed. I did 48 tows in one day with another 12 or 15 being done by anothe tow pilot who jumped in to help.

The 182 is a good idea, gives you a much larger pool of pilots from which to choose and I'd love to fly that 150 with a 180.

Nice to hear someone is feeding, watering and paying their tow pilots very well.

Walt

Originally Posted by

As a reasonably large Club (120 members, 2 tow planes)we have found that it is important to work with your insurance company and convince them that you have good written programs, procedures, check rides, etc in place. They will then tend to allow you to provide a good deal of latitude to your Chief Tow Pilot and Chief Glider Instructor. While the 500 hours is a good basic number you need this latitude. Currency is every bit as important as total hours over the last XX years. Even more important is attitude and judgment.

The 150 TW hours is, in my opinion, far too high. While our average TP candidate has high total time we only require a TW endorsement and 15 TW hours.. We then give them 10 hours of training in an L-19 including a minimum of 10 dual tows. Our other TP is a Pawnee with the STC to 250 HP.

Our big problem now is the fact that the fleet if L-19s is getting long in the tooth, and we have not found an acceptable 2-place replacement. We fly off of short grass runways and Super Cubs and other 180 HP tugs do not give us the safety margin we really need. Another problem is the high cost of getting the TW endorsement. I have had several retired airline types tell me they would like to tow but 15 hours of dual at a local FBO at $150 - $185 per hour is too steep for them.

Any suggestions on a replacement for our L-19 on short grass fields will be appreciated.

Skip Guimond

Skip, apparently your retired airline types are cheapskates. I spent 4K dollars out of my pocket to get back in the saddle after not flying power for about 30 years. I got a couple of hours in a cub, 5 hours in a Stearman which I loved, 3 hours in a Pitts admittedly doing mostly aerobatics but a Pitts flys so fast in the pattern that I could do 6 or 8 landings at the end of each hour and then I did 2 hours in a Zlin doing upset training, invaluable for a tow pilot. I would have done it even without the idea of towing just to get back in the saddle of pushing up a throttle. I flew nothing but gliders for the preceeding six years before being asked to tow. Love the idea of the L-19, wish we had one to teach towing.

Walt

I was rather surprised to read this thread. In england we seam to have
the opposite problem. Our club has 5 tugs a cub, a pawnee and 3 x
robins. We have one staff tow pilot for the summer and the rest are
volunteers. We have a regular queue of pilots wanting to join the
established pool of about 40 pilots.
Not being a Tuggie myself I dont know the hours requirements but I do
know we wont accept anyone without glider flying experience.
Incidentally the staff tug pilot position is very keenly contested. We try

to offer it to someone who is hours building towards a commercial
career. A friend of mine managed to fly 450hrs on summer in 10
minute increments. They got very good at landings and takoffs which
came in very hand when they had an engine fire a 50ft with a glider on
the back.

As often happens this discussion has gone off track from my original request. While discussion of pilot qualifications is useful, my original post was ASKING HOW AND WHERE TO ADVERTISE to recruit tow pilots.

I'd be willing to put up free postings or even pay advertising if I knew it would be seen by reasonably qualified candidates. I just don't know where to ask or advertise, got any ideas?

thanks
Chris

On Friday, September 25, 2015 at 8:20:30 PM UTC-5, wrote:
As often happens this discussion has gone off track from my original request. While discussion of pilot qualifications is useful, my original post was ASKING HOW AND WHERE TO ADVERTISE to recruit tow pilots.

I'd be willing to put up free postings or even pay advertising if I knew it would be seen by reasonably qualified candidates. I just don't know where to ask or advertise, got any ideas?

thanks
Chris

You could contact your local EAA chapters --- and maybe get a notice put in their newsletter or email distributions: http://www.eaa.org/apps/chapters/chaptermap.aspx

You could also put up postings on your local grass-airport bulletin boards. These airports tend to attract tail-wheel types.

On Friday, September 25, 2015 at 9:06:01 PM UTC-6, Sarah wrote:
On Friday, September 25, 2015 at 8:20:30 PM UTC-5, wrote:
As often happens this discussion has gone off track from my original request. While discussion of pilot qualifications is useful, my original post was ASKING HOW AND WHERE TO ADVERTISE to recruit tow pilots.

I'd be willing to put up free postings or even pay advertising if I knew it would be seen by reasonably qualified candidates. I just don't know where to ask or advertise, got any ideas?

thanks
Chris

You could contact your local EAA chapters --- and maybe get a notice put in their newsletter or email distributions: http://www.eaa.org/apps/chapters/chaptermap.aspx

You could also put up postings on your local grass-airport bulletin boards. These airports tend to attract tail-wheel types.

Expanding a bit on what Sarah suggests, engage other flying clubs and flight schools in the area.

These may introduce you to interested persons and they may also find getting a glider rating attractive.

However, be prepared to grow your own tow pilots. The suggestion that they have a glider rating is a good one. I think we may have one tow pilot that doesn't hold a glider rating. My chapter waives dues for active tow pilots. The commitment used to be two duty days a month. To me, this is wrong headed because for several years they didn't enforce that rule. Charge dues and credit back 50% per day served. Our tow pilots received a show up stipend and small remuneration per tow. Gas money for the sometimes long commute.

The no dues, no joining fee bit us once. A couple of guys signed up, got checked out, and departed with the endorsements. Subsequent tow pilot members have paid the joining plus a deposit that were refundable after a year of acceptable performance. The dues thing is still on the dumb side. Modern accounting programs make management trivial.

Rookie mistakes. I'm aware of at least three rookie mistakes that resulted in two Pawnees on their nose and a Super Cub on its back (that wasn't a rookie IIRC. Not sure about the recent ground loop.). I'm not a tow pilot, but I do drive our club winch as much as possible. I've walked and driven over every inch of our gliderport a number of times. It's not flat, but undulating, and the vegetation changes seasonally. I've encountered calving antelope, badgers, skunks, llamas, roaming pronghorn herds, and other critters on the ground. We've hooked hidden debris (including a car seat) and tie downs (cross runway) with the steel wire rope (setting at least one grass fire) and now UHMWPE rope over the years. We've lost strops and rings for up to four years in the prairie grass. One may still be on the other side of the Interstate. However, we usually find the missing items within days or weeks despite missing them in organized searches.

The Pawnees that ended up on their noses hit runway edges or parking berms. Like I said, rookie mistakes, as they added enough throttle to complete the upsets. What the chief tow pilots may have failed to do was walk the pilots to and from the launch area to the hangars a couple of times. Thus the budding tow pilot careers were nipped in the bud unnecessarily. Do yourselves a favor. Walk the route, and alternate routes, a time or three. I'm sure the newbies were quite prepared to do the tows.

I'm not aware of any way to advertise. However, it may pay off to do some grunt work. You'll need MS Access or skill with MySQL or similar. Download the FAA Airmen Releasable Database. You will have to join or create a view of the personal data and the ratings data and construct a query or SQL statement to filter for SEL and glider ratings, including private and commercial. Filter by your state, then by neighboring states, or by zip codes. Your SSA state governor(s) can get a list of SSA members to help filter further. I may be able to help with expired SSA members. With this information you may find inactive glider pilots who have had towing experience and maybe now would be a good time to return to the sport as both glider and tow pilot. It will take time and effort. I once did a query on North Dakota (looking for an SSA governor candidate, without success). What I did find was 55 pilots with glider ratings. 11 were CFI-G's! I suspect some may have flown at times with the Winnipeg Gliding Club. Others may have flown with a South Dakota group. One was an OTR trucker. He usually flew at commercial operations in California and Arizona.

That said, I don't think your task is easy, but it isn't ominous. The hard part is finding a phone number or e-mail for each pilot you can list. But a bit of smart searching on the Internet can get a result 80-90 percent of the time.

Frank Whiteley
970-330-2050 7am-10pm MDT

I think the suggestion to contact the local EAA chapter is the best I've
ever seen to this question which continually comes up. You might also
contact the local CAF chapter, if you have one; lots of tail dragger
pilots there, too.

As to training, if you can't or won't get a C-182, look into a Callair
http://www.edcoatescollection.com/ac1/austa2/VH-APC%283%29.html. A
great tow plane that even your mother can land without difficulty. And,
yes, I know it's so ugly that the earth repels it...

Dan

On 9/25/2015 10:59 PM, Frank Whiteley wrote:
On Friday, September 25, 2015 at 9:06:01 PM UTC-6, Sarah wrote:
On Friday, September 25, 2015 at 8:20:30 PM UTC-5, wrote:
As often happens this discussion has gone off track from my original request. While discussion of pilot qualifications is useful, my original post was ASKING HOW AND WHERE TO ADVERTISE to recruit tow pilots.

I'd be willing to put up free postings or even pay advertising if I knew it would be seen by reasonably qualified candidates. I just don't know where to ask or advertise, got any ideas?

thanks
Chris
You could contact your local EAA chapters --- and maybe get a notice put in their newsletter or email distributions: http://www.eaa.org/apps/chapters/chaptermap.aspx

You could also put up postings on your local grass-airport bulletin boards. These airports tend to attract tail-wheel types.
Expanding a bit on what Sarah suggests, engage other flying clubs and flight schools in the area.

These may introduce you to interested persons and they may also find getting a glider rating attractive.

However, be prepared to grow your own tow pilots. The suggestion that they have a glider rating is a good one. I think we may have one tow pilot that doesn't hold a glider rating. My chapter waives dues for active tow pilots. The commitment used to be two duty days a month. To me, this is wrong headed because for several years they didn't enforce that rule. Charge dues and credit back 50% per day served. Our tow pilots received a show up stipend and small remuneration per tow. Gas money for the sometimes long commute.

The no dues, no joining fee bit us once. A couple of guys signed up, got checked out, and departed with the endorsements. Subsequent tow pilot members have paid the joining plus a deposit that were refundable after a year of acceptable performance. The dues thing is still on the dumb side. Modern accounting programs make management trivial.

Rookie mistakes. I'm aware of at least three rookie mistakes that resulted in two Pawnees on their nose and a Super Cub on its back (that wasn't a rookie IIRC. Not sure about the recent ground loop.). I'm not a tow pilot, but I do drive our club winch as much as possible. I've walked and driven over every inch of our gliderport a number of times. It's not flat, but undulating, and the vegetation changes seasonally. I've encountered calving antelope, badgers, skunks, llamas, roaming pronghorn herds, and other critters on the ground. We've hooked hidden debris (including a car seat) and tie downs (cross runway) with the steel wire rope (setting at least one grass fire) and now UHMWPE rope over the years. We've lost strops and rings for up to four years in the prairie grass. One may still be on the other side of the Interstate. However, we usually find the missing items within days or weeks despite missing them in organized searches.

The Pawnees that ended up on their noses hit runway edges or parking berms. Like I said, rookie mistakes, as they added enough throttle to complete the upsets. What the chief tow pilots may have failed to do was walk the pilots to and from the launch area to the hangars a couple of times. Thus the budding tow pilot careers were nipped in the bud unnecessarily. Do yourselves a favor. Walk the route, and alternate routes, a time or three. I'm sure the newbies were quite prepared to do the tows.

I'm not aware of any way to advertise. However, it may pay off to do some grunt work. You'll need MS Access or skill with MySQL or similar. Download the FAA Airmen Releasable Database. You will have to join or create a view of the personal data and the ratings data and construct a query or SQL statement to filter for SEL and glider ratings, including private and commercial. Filter by your state, then by neighboring states, or by zip codes. Your SSA state governor(s) can get a list of SSA members to help filter further. I may be able to help with expired SSA members. With this information you may find inactive glider pilots who have had towing experience and maybe now would be a good time to return to the sport as both glider and tow pilot. It will take time and effort. I once did a query on North Dakota (looking for an SSA governor candidate, without success). What I did find was 55 pilots with glider ratings. 11 were CFI-G's! I suspect some may have flown at times with the Winnipeg Gliding Club. Others may have flown with a South Dakota group. One was an OTR trucker. He usually flew at commercial operations in California and Arizona.

That said, I don't think your task is easy, but it isn't ominous. The hard part is finding a phone number or e-mail for each pilot you can list. But a bit of smart searching on the Internet can get a result 80-90 percent of the time.

Frank Whiteley
970-330-2050 7am-10pm MDT

--
Dan, 5J

On Friday, September 25, 2015 at 8:20:30 PM UTC-5, wrote:
As often happens this discussion has gone off track from my original request. While discussion of pilot qualifications is useful, my original post was ASKING HOW AND WHERE TO ADVERTISE to recruit tow pilots.

I'd be willing to put up free postings or even pay advertising if I knew it would be seen by reasonably qualified candidates. I just don't know where to ask or advertise, got any ideas?

thanks
Chris

Sorry Chris, I'll try to delete my post in this thread about having tricycle gear towplanes to increase the potential tow pilot pool.

A few members have suggested we sell our Pawnee for a C182 to increase the possible pool. Well, it would make new members joining easier to transition to towing if they already had an airplane rating. It might make recruitment of possible members easier, but to get them to fly gliders is the goal. All the C182s I've seen towing cannot perform the same as the Pawnee.

We offer tow pilots discounts on the next years dues. 25% and 50% based on how many tow days they are on the schedule.
BillT

Chris--

We organized an FAA FAST (Wings) Aviation Safety Seminar specifically for "tail dragger" pilots. We had several of our tow pilots conduct the safety seminar with help from the local FSDO office. They were a big help on subject matter and of course they also sent out hundreds of invitations for us. The actual seminar attracted about 50 pilots and we wound up with three excellent TP candidates. Talk to your FSDO safety officer.

Skip Guimond, PGC