HarleyD, I'm repeating this secondhand from a guy who has probably passed on by now, so forgive me for any errors of recollection. He had some wonderful stories about training in Tasmania.
In the early stages of WWII, there was a training base in Western Junction near Launceston. (I don't know how long it stayed operational.) The Tiger Moths would be all over the place when the westerlies would kick in and the base personnel would wait for the phone calls from the various aerodromes the trainees landed. For the aircraft in the circuit, the ground personnel would line up along both sides of the runway and whoever happened to be nearest the aircraft when it was on or near the ground, jumped onto the wing and fuselage to hold it down. Supposedly it wasn't uncommon for the occasional go-round with an extra pax or two.
On the subject of knots, a bowline, a tautline hitch, a trucker's hitch with a half hitch for security on the loop, half hitches, or a combination. They've all worked for me. Never liked the trucker's hitch that much though. It has to stay tight to work properly even with a half hitch on the loop. I like the alpine butterfly knot that Stallie speaks about. Doesn't work so well if you change aircraft though. The knot may have to be undone when tying down a low wing after previously using the rope for a high wing. And Stallie, any firefighter should know how to tie a bowline one handed.
Regarding tying the elevators: I would have thought it more important just locking them in position - any position -rather than have the elevators flap and bang themselves to bits on the stops and stretch the cables. It would seem to me to be far more important than worrying about whether the AoA on the ground was 10 degrees or 110 degrees.
AoA on the ground and a relationship to elevator position? What garbage! So what you're saying The Green Goblin is that if the wings lift off in a high wind, a back stick and a tied down tail is going to encourage additional pitch up? Maybe a slight chance in a nosewheel where the tail has somewhere to go, but a taildragger? If anything, it's keeping the aircraft on the ground.
Last edited by Lodown; 5th Feb 2009 at 10:53.