To Pawnee or not to Pawnee...that is the question...

"John Smith" wrote in message
. ..
Bill Daniels wrote:

If the tug costs the members big money then, since the members are the
club, it costs the club big money. It's financial shell game to say the
tug is a"break even" operation.

I don't get your logic. *Somebody* has to pay the tug. If it isn't the
pilot behind the tug, then it's the club as a whole. Do you advocate that
the non-flying pilots should subsidize the flying ones? Do you advocate
low tow rates subsidized by high club membership fees? Do you think high
membership fees would lead to a growth in club membership?

Of course it makes sense for individual members to pay for the services they
recieve. That's just the nuts and bolts of club finances. It's up to a
club membership to decide how they allocate costs and fees. Whatever they
choose, there's no right or wrong answer as long as it's legal and the
majority of the membership agrees. Having one activity subsidize another is
fine if the membership agrees.

But don't stop with the nuts and bolts, stand back and look at the big
picture the way a prospecitve new member looks at it. They ask, "What's it
going to cost me to fly gliders with this organization?" The cost of tows
is a big part of the answer. If the total cost is too high, they go another
direction. If that happens too often, the remaining members are burdened
with a bigger and bigger share of the cost of a tug.

I'm just saying look at it both ways and don't try to sweep the real costs
of operating a tug under the rug by saying, "Well, it pays for itself so
we're OK." If a smaller and smaller number of members are paying the cost,
you're not OK, you're in a financial death spiral.

A winch can be used to generate a substantial revenue stream while reducing
the individual members launch cost - a big win-win. That revenue stream can
be used to subsidize a tug. For sure, it won't work the other way around.

Bill Daniels

Bill Daniels wrote:

But don't stop with the nuts and bolts, stand back and look at the big
picture the way a prospecitve new member looks at it. They ask, "What's it
going to cost me to fly gliders with this organization?" The cost of tows
is a big part of the answer. If the total cost is too high, they go another

The total cost is always the same, there's no free lunch. If your tows
are too cheap, then the membership fees must be higher, unless you have
some magic money print press in your basement. I strongly believe that
high membership fees are much more prohibitive for new members than tow
fees.

My club bills the true towing cost. On the other hand, we don't bill the
glider usage by time but by the membership fee, because glider ownership
costs the same whether the glider is flown or not.

A winch can be used to generate a substantial revenue stream while reducing
the individual members launch cost - a big win-win.

You don't have to convince me of the advantages of a winch, after all,
I'm a winch driver. And I just *love* those catapult take offs. But as I
said in another post, you can't go cross country from the winch at every
site. At ours, for example, we mostly can't, so we use the winch mainly
for training. As landing practice is a major part of the student
training, a winch does reduce training cost tremendously. As you only
need one launch for an 8 hour cross country flight, tow cost isn't such
a big problem for cross country flying.

John Smith wrote:
Michael Ash wrote:
That is an interesting way to pay, although it seems unfortunate that I'd
have to pay extra for a go around if one should occur.

That's life. There is no such thing as a pricing system which is fair
for everybody in all circumstances.

Certainly, just pointing out a small problem.

My club, like most (I think), charges by altitude and nothing more,

Most clubs I know charge by time. I guess this is regional culture.

Interesting. In looking around at other clubs and commercial operations,
the ones I've seen have always quoted prices for various altitudes.
Time-based pricing has always been for retrieves from what I've seen. Of
course I haven't looked at a huge number of places either.

If you want to launch earlier and/or plan to do a big flight, you are
better off towing to some known thermically active regions farther away.
This will cost you about twice as much, but not because of altitude, but
because of distance. You see, the "altitude price system" just wouldn't
work here.

Oh, it would work, maybe just not as well.

Nothing says you can't keep climbing as you tow. You'll get charged for
all the extra altitude. My club has no official limit on how high you can
tow, you just get charged for wherever you get off. If you want to tow to
some place far away, you can tell the tow pilot what your plan is and go
straight out until you get there, then pay your fee for however high you
were when you arrived. Maybe this will be higher than you'd like, but it
does you no harm to start out with too much altitude (unless you're going
for a badge, I suppose). Although I haven't really seen anyone do this;
where I fly, a 3000ft straight out tow seems to be about as far as anyone
likes to go. We do occasionally do higher tows, but not in order to gain
more distance.

--
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software

"John Smith" wrote in message
. ..

You don't have to convince me of the advantages of a winch, after all, I'm
a winch driver. And I just *love* those catapult take offs. But as I said
in another post, you can't go cross country from the winch at every site.
At ours, for example, we mostly can't, so we use the winch mainly for
training. As landing practice is a major part of the student training, a
winch does reduce training cost tremendously. As you only need one launch
for an 8 hour cross country flight, tow cost isn't such a big problem for
cross country flying.

I don't argue against aero tow. There will always be time and places where
it's the best.

So why can't you get away XC from your winch?

Bill Daniels

On Oct 18, 3:49 am, " wrote:
I concur with Cloudy. Eventually, almost all high volume tow
operations in the USA have ended up with Pawnees. Rugged, inexpensive
to buy and operate

Reason I mentioned "other efficient 180hp tugs" is because at least at
sea-level sites, the likes of SuperCubs and Robin DR400s (guess you
don't have them in the US) tow to height just as fast as a Pawnee, but
use only something like two-thirds of the fuel by virtue of a much
more efficient aerodynamic design. The Robin saves even more on aero-
tow retrieve (it's fast), and is a very popular tug in the UK (moreso
than the Pawnee). In fact we even tried towing with a Rotax Falke -
only 100hp or so, but very efficient. Within its tow limit (600kg)
what it loses in climb to a Pawnee 250 it more than makes up on
descent as it's water-cooled.

The only place a Pawnee shines (at sea-level) is for acceleration on
the ground roll. If you have the room, that's not an issue.


Dan

Bill Daniels wrote:

So why can't you get away XC from your winch?

Our runway is 2000ft. We can use about 2300ft of cable which gives us
1300ft of height if wind conditions are ideal, more typically 1150ft and
sometimes only 1000ft if conditions are poor. This just isn't enough to
reach our nearest thermal, simple as that. Not everybody is operating
from a 5000ft runway and not every airfield was placed with thermals in
mind.

On Oct 22, 9:27 am, Dan G wrote:
In fact we even tried towing with a Rotax Falke -
only 100hp or so, but very efficient.

"As a tug, the SF25C Rotax Falke seems to perform very well, climbing
with heavy two-seaters at 400ft/min. This is marginally slower than,
say, a Robin DR400, but this Falke uses only half as much fuel and the
noise pollution is much less. In Germany, official analysis of
comparative tug noise estimates a single tow in a Robin DR400 type tug
equates to 4.8 tows in a SF25C Rotax Falke. Glider-tug speed
compatibility, similar wing loadings and aspect ratios, and reduced
wake turbulence, mean the motorglider aerotowing option offers
significant safety features.

The manufacturer's fuel consumption figures are 16-18 litres (c 3.5
gallons) an hour, hardly thirsty for tugs. Taking into account all the
costs of operating the Falke, including an engine rebuild every 2,000
hours, insurance, fuel and maintenance costs, a Falke is estimated by
its makers to tow at about 60 per cent of the cost of today's
conventional tugs."

http://www.fffoundation.co.uk/SGart.html

On Oct 22, 5:07 am, Dan G wrote:
In fact we even tried towing with a Rotax Falke -
only 100hp or so, but very efficient.

"As a tug, the SF25C Rotax Falke seems to perform very well, climbing
with heavy two-seaters at 400ft/min. This is marginally slower than,

Well, imagine that. If the students (and/or instructors...and/or
private ship owners) really **** of the tow pilot, he can shut the
"money making motor" off and soar for himself! I like that idea.

Having been stuck as the only "tow slave" on many booming days when I
wanted to soar (but was too chicken to shut off the motor in the
Pawnee or CallAir). Yeah, I know pilots that have taken Pawnee
"gliders" to 20,000+ feet in wave -- I guess I never got THAT
desperate.

-Pete

On Oct 22, 6:07 am, Dan G wrote:
On Oct 22, 9:27 am, Dan G wrote:

In fact we even tried towing with a Rotax Falke -
only 100hp or so, but very efficient.

"As a tug, the SF25C Rotax Falke seems to perform very well, climbing
with heavy two-seaters at 400ft/min. This is marginally slower than,
say, a Robin DR400, but this Falke uses only half as much fuel and the
noise pollution is much less. In Germany, official analysis of
comparative tug noise estimates a single tow in a Robin DR400 type tug
equates to 4.8 tows in a SF25C Rotax Falke. Glider-tug speed
compatibility, similar wing loadings and aspect ratios, and reduced
wake turbulence, mean the motorglider aerotowing option offers
significant safety features.

The manufacturer's fuel consumption figures are 16-18 litres (c 3.5
gallons) an hour, hardly thirsty for tugs. Taking into account all the
costs of operating the Falke, including an engine rebuild every 2,000
hours, insurance, fuel and maintenance costs, a Falke is estimated by
its makers to tow at about 60 per cent of the cost of today's
conventional tugs."

http://www.fffoundation.co.uk/SGart.html

That article was published in 2000. How many are currently in use as
tugs?

Ours was used for a couple of comps in 2005 with great effect (matched
the Pawnees as due the very quick descent and only used 1/3 the fuel),
but since then it hasn't been insured for towing. Another club is a
using a G109 with the turbo Rotax, but has performance issues once the
5-minute boost period is over (i.e., if you want to go higher than
about 3,000'). Finally I know of a Rotax-engined microlight being used
for towing in South Africa.

So, being honest, it's not being used widely (at least not to my
knowledge). There's no good reason though - maybe it's a combination
of it not being around for long, that there's still a lot of Pawnees
and Robins knocking around which are still in use, and that new things
rarely get taken up widely in gliding even if they're proven (e.g.
plasma rope).


Dan