Originally Posted by
mary meagher
Hello Broomstick Pilot, and the rest....I always understood that Australians did things backwards, like the low tow. Which calls for an interesting maneuver at the start of your takeoff; the glider would much rather follow the tug above the slipstream. To assume the low tow you have to dive through the wake. Fancy maneuvers low down have often led to bigger problems, so nearly all the tugging I ever did was UK regulation, above the wake, but RULE NUMBER ONE for the glider pilot was NEVER PULL UP THE TAIL OF THE TUG. Also, it is much easier to kill a tug pilot than a winch driver! Only once in my tugging career did a glider vanish on tow, I couldn't see him in the tug mirrors, so eventually figured he had pulled off gently, so I gently began a descent, and of course it was still there on the rope! he gave up just as it was getting interesting. Another time at Shenington, a K8 was hooked on for an airtow....that is, I assumed it had been hooked on..... Onlookers were greatly amused to watch me take off, glider left behind! I couldn't be quite sure that being a light weight K8 it wasn't still following....so towed the empty rope to 2,000' .
As far as dumping the rope, farmers tend to get irritated if you leave ropes lying around on the crops.
Hi Mary, yep the transition during the initial climb is an extra thing to manage I guess, but in my years of instructing it's never caused big issues and in fact can be virtually avoided by holding off the nose up rotation until the glider is in the low tow position. I guess ground effect helps cancel out the rolling effect.