RGSA/Hawks,
Robin was over to my house a few days ago and we rigged Mike's and my Falcon 195' for static towing by means of a car or truck.
Not much was required as far as the glider was concerned.
We attached a keel anchor point for the tow bridle about ten inches ahead of the of the hang straps. On the nose of the glider we reattached a nose release cord and ring that for static towing will only be used for transporting the glider on the back of the ground based tow vehicle. That's all for the preparation needed for the glider.
Next I demonstrated for Robin how I tie weak links and then connect the weak link to the two string release at the apex of the Skyting bridle.
I prefer to fly with the bridle always attached to myself and the keel.
With my release at the bridle's apex I'm able to release with low chance of the towline snagging any part of the glider's rigging even if I would be gusted 90º left or right of the towing direction. I gave up using threaded bridles decades ago due to snagging captures upon releasing. I no longer have any trouble with threaded bridles ever since I stopped using them. They were extremely handy when they worked. (Less drag, looks better and all that nit picky drivel.) But, just under go a wrap and capture event one time upon releasing and you will easily fall out of love with the dreaded threaded bridle.
We tried to break test a weak links but were not strong enough. I still have to test my weak link material. For static towing I prefer 222 lbs but nothing over 350 lbs breaking strength for payout winch towing. My rule is nothing over 1.6 of my all up weight.
Another must for me is to tow only while on constant radio transmit (TX).
Another must for me is to tow with no lower, of 5 mph wind speed for a, static, running, take off due to my age and ground altitude which is near 4,400' msl.
With the density altitude near Las Cruces, NM many times hovering around 5,000' msl I've had to set some minimum's for myself that were of no concern thirty years ago.
As mentioned elsewhere on the RGSA Club thread the Dona Ana County road grader must not be grading the tow road during tow operations. That is another minimum that is good advice for all pilot ages.
Of course towing is not just that simple. There are more lessons learned since I started towing early January 1978. I've only adopted a few new school lessons since towing procedures have, over the years, wandered away from from good lessons and procedures learned over time.
Just a few things that I've observed over time is what I call mission creep. Methods of towing changes that are thought to be improvements but have allowed bad stuff happening to creep back into towing that had been fixed years before. Improvements that contain words such as , aesthetics, less drag, more towline, adequate tow road, smaller towline, simplified bridle, are a few "Improvements," that have allowed back in bad things to rear their ugly heads once again.
So when something really scary happens that had never happened before; remember to put two and two together and ask yourself could our last, "improvement," have caused this (seemingly unrelated event.) to happen?
