Motorglider Tug

Robert,

If your club had to buy a towplane all over again,
would you still buy the motorglider, or would you get
another Rallye or other 'normal' airplane?

Thanks,
Ray Lovinggood

Bad things: the reliability of the engine is lower
than expected. Maybe our
plane is an exception, but we had a lot of minor and
major engine failures,
including a crack in the main engine body, which implied
replacement of the
engine. Full power with maximum turbo pressure is limited
to 5 minutes, this
doesn't hurt as most tows are shorter than that.

Runway 1000m, altitude 370 ft, temperature 20-35°C,
reached 40°C in August
2003. Prevailing winds are crosswinds.

----------
Dans l'article , Ray Lovinggood
a écrit :


Robert,

If your club had to buy a towplane all over again,
would you still buy the motorglider, or would you get
another Rallye or other 'normal' airplane?


I think it would be another motorglider. The case in some way already
happened, as during some time when the Rallye was grounded for corrosion and
the Dimona was unreliable/unavailable, the club hired another Dimona. This
is based on the assumption that most of the problems we had with the engine
are exceptionnal and would not happen with another one. One factor to be
considered is also what kind of fuel is used. The Dimona may use Avgas 100LL
as well as unleaded 95 automotive gas. The second one is recommended for
better reliablity, as the lead in the 100 LL alway causes more or less
contamination of the oil which is the same as the oil used for actuating the
variable pitch system, and we had problems probably due to that. But as we
need 100 LL for the Rallye and have only one tank, we are stuck to that as
long as the Rallye remains. The cost for splitting the tank was evaluated
and considered prohibitive regarding the expected life of the Rallye. If
some day it is replaced by another Dimona, we would be able to switch to
unleaded 95. Anyway another Rallye is probably out of question since
manufacturing of them stopped a long time ago, only old ones are available
and buying one of them is certainly buying a lot of problems. E.g. when the
Rallye was grounded for corrosion, several monthes were spent just waiting
for the answer of the manufacturer for the proper repair procedure without
which no work could be legally started.

Robert,

If your club had to buy a towplane all over again,
would you still buy the motorglider, or would you get
another Rallye or other 'normal' airplane?

Thanks,
Ray Lovinggood

Bad things: the reliability of the engine is lower
than expected. Maybe our
plane is an exception, but we had a lot of minor and
major engine failures,
including a crack in the main engine body, which implied
replacement of the
engine. Full power with maximum turbo pressure is limited
to 5 minutes, this
doesn't hurt as most tows are shorter than that.

Runway 1000m, altitude 370 ft, temperature 20-35°C,
reached 40°C in August
2003. Prevailing winds are crosswinds.

Robert,

If your club had to buy a towplane all over again,
would you still buy the motorglider, or would you get
another Rallye or other 'normal' airplane?

Thanks,
Ray Lovinggood

Bad things: the reliability of the engine is lower
than expected. Maybe our
plane is an exception, but we had a lot of minor and
major engine failures,
including a crack in the main engine body, which implied
replacement of the
engine. Full power with maximum turbo pressure is limited
to 5 minutes, this
doesn't hurt as most tows are shorter than that.

Runway 1000m, altitude 370 ft, temperature 20-35°C,
reached 40°C in August
2003. Prevailing winds are crosswinds.

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

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

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

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

The hk36 Dimona with either 100hp or 115hp is a large outlay and the
prop can easily be damages with the longish groundrun if there is any
stone at all on strip. At the moment I am trying to deceide engine
for a late model falke - Sauer 2700 105HP, Rotax 100HP or Jabiru
120HP. I have all the engineering done for the Jabiru by one of
Australia's most experienced Reg35 engineer and much can be done (and
MUST be) to get the Jabiru 6 cooling sorted out but it is still
aircooled. Props are cheap for Jabiru but are really important to get
climb. At the moment I am near complete with a Falke Jabiru 85HP
conversion but that is only for towing Libelles etc and then on
blacktop. The good thing about Jabiru for us in Australia is parts
cheap and overnight. I do know the French are doing a falke
conversion to towing without Scheibe approvals!! Ian McPhee
Australia

On 12 Nov 2004 11:39:55 -0800, (Ian McPhee)
wrote:

The hk36 Dimona with either 100hp or 115hp is a large outlay and the
prop can easily be damages with the longish groundrun if there is any
stone at all on strip. At the moment I am trying to deceide engine
for a late model falke - Sauer 2700 105HP, Rotax 100HP or Jabiru
120HP. I have all the engineering done for the Jabiru by one of
Australia's most experienced Reg35 engineer and much can be done (and
MUST be) to get the Jabiru 6 cooling sorted out but it is still
aircooled. Props are cheap for Jabiru but are really important to get
climb. At the moment I am near complete with a Falke Jabiru 85HP
conversion but that is only for towing Libelles etc and then on
blacktop.

Hi Ian,
be careful with the Jabiru engine. I've seen a couple of aircraft with
these engines, and they all have significant problems with their power
output (the 85 hp engine looked more like about 65 hp, and the 120 hp
had less performance than a Rotax 912S at 100 hp).

As you say it - the cooling of the 3300 is a problem, not to mention
the air supply to the centered airbox (this is where the power loss
came from onth planes I saw).

If you are searching for an engine for a tow plane, check the Limbach
2400 ET/DT. It delivers true 135 hp with an unregulated turbocharger,
weighs 85 kg and is available for about 26.000 EUR. It's used in a
G-109 conversion and over 100 of these engines are already flying,
apparently pretty successful and reliable.


Bye
Andreas