Hello David Roberts
Scary story, well told!
Reminds me of the time my first gliding-instructor decided that there must be wave-lift in 'them thar hills' (the first ridge of mountains in the Namib desert of the country today known as Namibia). That devine inspiration over with, we set about preparing the pilgrimage from Swakopmund, a little town on the coastal edge of the desert, to the ridge of mountains about a hundredandtwenty klicks into the desert: Two towcars, one a manual Toyota pickup of some description, the other a Ford Ranchero Automatic (the regular towcar.Yes, we learnt to glide off of car-launches in Africa!) and one tuck-wagon, a car dragging a trailer with food, beer, tents etc. The gliders were our beloved ASK13 and the SF34 (a little known Scheibe model) Tow-cables were around 800 metres. And off we went, gliders up there in the longest-lasting tows I've ever seen, two tows in a row with the tuck-wagon bringing up the rear, all hurtling along on a gravel-surface PUBLIC ROAD through the Namib desert! What with sudden serpentine bends in the roads forcing releases from time-to-time, and similar setbacks, we had a blast! Madness? Hey, we were kids back then, this was a quiet little piece of nowhere in Africa in the eighties, and the instructor was certifiable
Wonderful guy! Rest in peace, Dieter..
In a nutshell, I started flying gliders at age fifteen. Later, when building hours towards my first commercial ticket, I tugged on a Super Cub because the club was keen on tug-pilots who knew what life is like on the other end of the cable. Only did tug for about a year, and all of that was off of a long, paved strip that was very close to sea level. (not in Namibia any more, sigh...)Temperatures were fairly low too, and much of the time there was wind. Needless to say a lot of the tows went straight to the nearest ridge, after the obligatory safety-circuit. What I'm getting at is that my tugging experience is limited and what towing I did was close to the optimum, performance-wise, due to the temperature, elevation, wind, etc.
Also, I have not been able to consistently keep at gliding and tugging seeing as I have been getting my day-job sorted out. After quite a few years I finally have the duty-roster that enables me to get back into 'real' flying, i.e. gliding. The search for aerotow takeoff distances arose because a group of glider-pilots is considering aerotow off of a hitherto untested strip, i.e. previously winch only. I have run into a lot of "Oh, about so far" or "You can't really get numbers" or "They've always tugged this kit off of this strip so XXX feet should be enough where you're at" and in spite of actually having tugged myself I couldn't give you exact figures either, but I figured there MUST be some nut out there who's gone and scientifically figured out all the variables. And it appears there is, witness the links so kindly provided earlier!
Thanks again for all the input provided!
Best regards to all, safe flying! (don't go launching off public roads!
)
Doodlebug