Logging glider-towing hours
 

Currently hourbuilding by doing glider towing. Have heard varying responses as to how people log their flights. Almost everyone seems to opt for either 10 minutes per tow, or 0.2 hours per tow. It may only be 2 minutes difference, but that soon adds up when you're getting 40 flights a day.

What system have tuggies on pprune used?

CS

Why not record all the times from when the aircraft first moves under it's own power for the purpose of flight until the times it comes to rest, or whatever the wording in the ANO is?

I think that because you're shutting down and starting up so often, it's generally accepted that you use a standard time for the tow, and if some tows take longer and some a little less, it usually averages out over the season anyway.

Just wondering what previous/current tuggies use for their standard tow time.

How long are you on the ground for? If the time is very low (I think it is up to 5 or 10 minutes) then it is accepted to log as a single flight.

Long time since I was in the tug game (so to speak) .. we used to record a bunch of data for maintenance, including chocks and wheels times. At the end of the day, the relevant totals were there for the logbook as well.

CS,

I take the flight time(take off to touch down) from the flying log and add 5 mins to each tow for taxi time. This seems to work fairly well for me. I've compared my timings against the engine hours and its pretty much spot on. Everyone has their own method though, some go for 10 mins to 2000ft and add 5 mins to every 1000ft thereafter. Depends what your flying too, the likes of a pawnee climbs much faster than most. Our chippie is a 180 but with a 2 seater with full water ballast behind you, its a long time on tow! Much nicer to fly than the pawnee though.

.. the big Pawnee is fine ... but the baby model was a bit of a dog on tow ..

10 mins per tow, regardless of tow height.
Evens out over the year.

I'd go with 10 minutes a tow, what you loose out on the occasional short tow you make up with later on with a retrieve.

In my club, we use tach time - first start to last stop. Logged as one flight with the number of tows in the remarks column