poor lateral control on a slow tow?

On Dec 31, 9:35*am, sisu1a wrote:
Sure, even more with flaps equipped ships! But yaw control seems to be
more affected than roll. Can we explain that?
Just a little faster please is what doctor ordered here...usually 5
mph more is enough to a more pleasant tow.

I'm going to assume your flying with a nosehook, in which case the big
tether is resisting motion in the yaw axis... whereas for roll the
towrope runs directly down the longitudinal axis, leaving airspeed/AoA
as the dominant external forces affecting roll.

The rope also holds the glider at unnatural attitudes for given
airspeeds, which I think contributes a lot to the lack of perceived
(less than usual for that particular airspeed) aileron authority,
contributing greatly to making the glider feel horrible on tow,
despite being well within it's stall speed.

Not as an endorsement for or against this arrangement but from an
aerodynamic prospective rather, a CG hook leaves the yaw axis pretty
free to swivel accordingly and likely reduces the rope induced AoA
affecting aileron authority as well *once in a steady climb. (*not to
be confused with the up pitching tendency these hooks are famous for
during the initial acceleration of a launch...)

-Paul

Since the possible influence of hook position has been introduced,
I'll have to add that all my tows in the 28 have been on the CG hook
as were all my tows in the 19 I had before that.

One factor that has not been mentioned yet is the fact that a
ballasted glider has much higher roll inertia that a dry one. This
will require larger aileron inputs to get the same roll response and I
suppose could lead to an aileron stall.

I don't remember ever having loss of control authority on an
unballasted tow and maybe there is more to that than just the
difference in stall speeds.

Andy