http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9230

You'll find a long conversation about aerotowing and leaving the cart (and carts in general) at the URL above. I'll add a bit to that conversation here. I'm sure that I've written about this subject before from my previous experiences here at Cowboy Up, but I thought I was expand a bit on the earlier discussion.

Cowboy Up offers aerotowing at Alpine, Wyoming. It is on a dry lake bed at 5,500' AGL. The air temperatures is in the upper eighties. Tiki is piloting a 583 powered Dragonfly. The lake bed is not rolled, but is rough. The cart has slick plastic cradles with a line below the control frame for you to hang on to. The cradles move easily from side to side.

This is the most difficult aerotowing I do. Most of my aerotowing takes place in low elevation with thick air. The air is quite thin here, it feels different, and it feels especially different on the cart. You've got to hold on a lot longer before you are at a safe flying speed. A lot longer.

You also have to hold on a lot longer because you are towing behind a 583 and they take a long time to accelerate. I  tow mostly behind 912 or 914's and these monsters jerk you right out of the cart and into the air. Not so here. I was towing at Cloud 9 a lot before I came here, and their monster Dragonfly would drag you up at 1,000 fpm +.

I am used to towing behind 583's, for example behind Bobby Bailey, but not 583's at 5,500'AGL, except when I come here. Frankly the climb rate is exceptionally slow and it takes a long time for the Dragonfly to get off the ground.

On my first tow today, I hung on to the cart for about twice or three times longer then I had been used to recently. I also resisted the cart to keep myself back a bit while I usually let the tug pull me through a bit to get at the proper angle of attack. This was Bart's request and given the circumstances (bumpy runway, slick cradles), I wanted to be sure to stay with and on the cart and not get pulled forward too much.

I hung on until I had plenty of airspeed and came off the cart climbing about six feet. This appeared unusually to Tiki as she is used to seeing folks come up just barely off the cart at a foot or two and she pulled back on the stick to bring the tug up a bit and get it off the ground as she thought I was rocketing to the moon.

I immediately felt the tug slow down as I flew at six feet off the ground and thought, oh well, what can I do now. Then instantly the rope got tight again and we proceeded without incident.

On the next tow, after I spoke with Tiki assuring her that I knew better than to get too high behind the tug, I made sure to hold on much longer. In fact I held on so long that I took the cart up with me before I let go. Now they have a rope on this cart, but I checked it to be sure that it couldn't wrap around my base tube. I adjusted the rope tightness (easy to do by rotating one end of the rope), so that the rope was touching the bottom of the base tube as I held it. Even if the rope was completely slack as long as I had two hands on it widely spaced it wouldn't catch the base tube.

Still, as I have pointed out, the oranges hoses are better and Bart is considering putting them on this cart. The rope is fine, the hoses, better.

I pulled the cart off the ground and stuffed the bar. I had to have the bar all the way back even though I had half VG on, to stay down with the tug, Still I was above it for the first ten or fifteen seconds, with the bar stuffed, as I said. This is easy to do with a Wills Wing Sport 2, but may be a bit more problematic with a topless glider.

It takes Tiki a long time to climb out (relative to what I experienced in Michigan) at this high altitude and with this low power tug. You can't have everything and if you adjust your expectations and your practices, it is just fine.

On my second and third tow the wind was a side wind and the wing on the upwind side lifted a bit as it had plenty of time while I was on the cart before I had enough speed to fly away. But I just held on tight (much tighter than normally) and made sure I didn't get off the cart until I was flying. It came with me a bit on the third tow also.

So aerotowing is not the same every where. I have to readjust my procedures and expectations and "feel" when I'm presented with radically new circumstances. 

Discuss Aerotowing at the Oz Report forum
   
 
 
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