http://www.blueskyhg.com/

I took the first scooter tow on Saturday morning just to test out the wind conditions. I kept my nose down and my hands in the grapevine grip for a good long run, but let the glider come off the ground for a short flight so that Steve could assess the conditions. Steve did man towing after that for the next hour or so.

For my next scooter tow, I took off the V-bridle. This is what the V-bridle normally looks like for the low and slow scooter towing set up:

Click on above for a higher resolution version.

The lower portion of the bridle connects to loops on the left and right side near the hips, going through a loop in the line going to the keel. There is a secondary barrel release on this lower bridle.

The V-bridle goes to the primary release, a modified spinnaker release operated by a brake handle on the right down tube next to the pilot's hand.

I took off the line going to the keel as I didn't want the scooter tow rope to pull the glider. Towing the glider with the scooter tow rope is a great advantage when training new students, but I wanted to have to push the glider with my shoulders, as I would in a "normal" foot launch. So I added some ropes to the Blue Sky training harness, and made a mid chest version of the pro-tow:

Click on above for a higher resolution version.

I looped and then tied yellow poly rope from the shoulder loops to the hip loops on both the left and right side. I then looped the bridle and barrel release to the center of the poly loops, so that the scooter tow rope would be raised up above and away from the base tube. In both cases the bridles go above the base tube.

So now I had to release the scooter tow rope using the barrel release rather than the brake release and I had only one release. Of course, Steve could easily put me down if I didn't release.

It turned out that for me I could really tell the difference. It was easy to push the glider with my shoulders keeping a strong grapevine grip.

Steve mentioned that he noticed when I rotated to the bottle grip, which I would do after a long run to let the glider off the ground, I rotated with my elbow and not with my wrists moving my hands up (and letting the nose pop up). He had me practice keeping my hands in the same location and pulling back on the downtubes with enough force to keep the glider on the ground. As there is plenty of room to run and Steve can determine just how hard he is pulling you, it is quite possible to keep the glider on the ground for a long ways with sufficient effort on the down tubes.

There was plenty of wind on Saturday so I spent plenty of time just running into the wind with the Falcon 195, keeping the glider on my shoulders and rotating my hands from grapevine grip to bottle grip and back, but keeping the down tubes back. I was training my muscles to remember to keep the bottle grip down low where I can keep the nose down.

On my last tow of the morning I let the glider get in front of me. I had to run a bit harder and push out a bit to get back under it. Steve felt that I was concentrating too hard on keeping the glider down and on my shoulders with the down tubes back. That what he wanted to see was for me to let the glider out a bit at the beginning of the run and then pull back on the downtubes as the strap becomes tight. This is, of course, a touchy subject.

http://ozreport.com/12.044#1

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10966

The glider strap doesn't become tight in this video and launch sequence even though I am not particularly concentrating on bringing the down tubes back with my grapevine grip. I'm wondering if I can run behind the scooter tow in my Moyes Matrix Race harness with the strap loose, but the down tubes not pulled back quite so far. Hopefully I'll get some video of my own launches here soon, to be able to get a better idea of what is actually taking place during a launch.

I don't believe that Steve is used to seeing a pilot scooter tow in a Moyes Matrix Race harness with a slider harness. A harness where the hang straps don't come tight for a long time if at all, unless you are really angled forward, maybe through the control frame with your shoulders no longer pushing against the down tubes.