The weekend was forecast for 2 decent days of flying and most expected to see some soaring. I was also looking forward to this weekend because of the possibility of doing my first Aerotows. John has been hinting at it for a few weeks now but this week was the first I seriously considered trying. I arranged to be out early to take advantage of the calm and cool air and Frank and I set up my glider for towing.
To cut strait to the chase: my first two attempts went very poorly although no harm was done.
On my first launch, I stayed in the cart too long. I over reacted to the advice that I would need to hold on to the cart much longer than I normally do while scooter towing and ended up trying to stay on the cart well after I was at an appropriate speed to take off. When I did finally come out of the cart, I didn't follow the tug as it climbed, I stayed low and fast, again over reacting to the advice that when aerotowing you need to fly much faster. While I don't think I was necessarily in immediate trouble, I was certainly not doing vary good yet so Frank made the cautious move and gave me the tow line. I made a safe (but uncomfortable) wheel landing in the tall grass and went back to try again.
The second launch was much scarier. Although I did come out of the cart on time, I stayed low, and didn't watch the tug at all. I had all my attention on flying the glider. I was still pulling in too far in order to keep my speed up where I thought it should be so I got below the tug again. If I had led the bar out and climbed up with the tug I think I might have been OK. But I didn't, and I definitely was not OK. I started oscillating by making enormous corrections and holding those corrections for too long. One wing tip came close to the ground and I surged all over the place. I felt like I was loosing control so I released myself from the line. After releasing, I leveled off and made a controlled landing on my feet in the grass.
Right after that second attempt, I knew I didn't do very good but I didn't realize how ridiculously close I was to a bad crash. Anyway, the video shows it pretty well I think. We discussed my second attempt a bit, but easy concluded I shouldn't try again just yet. I would wait until the late evening to try again. Many people thought that the glider was a big unknown, it hadn't been aerotowed before and the attachment point at the keel could have been wrong. It was also suggested that I should use more VG, although, in my limited experience using the VG on that glider, it doesn't make that much of a difference in free flight so I wasn't convinced. In fact, I don't like having the VG on at all while scooter towing because it ends up being harder to make the small corrections in roll that you need to stay facing down the tow line. In the end I think Aerotowing has nothing in common with scooter towing and I shouldn't be trying to apply my experiences with scooter towing to Aerotowing. I think VG is pretty likely to make a positive difference in my control under Aerotow.
I thought about stepping all the way back to taking a tandem next, I already have complete confidence controlling the glider (at least under the most gentle of conditions), but the feeling of being towed behind the airplane is still pretty unique and I could easily get comfortable with that before trying again. The other option was just flying the Falcon that John trains students on. It would eliminate many unknowns from the equation since it was already set up to aerotow and had been aerotowed by dozens of pilots over the years and was a very easy glider to fly.
We waited until the evening when things were starting to cool off before I towed again. By this time all the other pilots were around, some already finished flying for the day so they were eager to jump in with advice at the last minute. Some were so eager, they continued throwing scenarios at me even while I was doing my hang check ("If you have to land out in a field, remember to land on TOP of the grass...Don't forget, if you have to drop the tow line, remember where it lands...etc). I had spent all day thinking about this and talking to people for advice and I was ready to go. It stops helping when the student is overwhelmed with information that really doesn't have anything to do with what he's trying to accomplish!
Anyway...that third attempt went perfectly smooth. I felt calm, controlled, and focused the whole flight. I had my eyes on the tug from the time the wheels first started rolling, I left the cart on time, and followed the tug as it climbed to maintain my position behind it. I might have been slow to adjust my position when I drifted low or drifted high, but I think I did a good job of staying in the sweet spot over all. I didn't have an instrument with me so I don't remember how high I got, but I think we climbed all the way to 2200 feet and I had a smooth sled ride back down to the field. I think my first aerowtow flight went great!
TL;DR Check out the video!
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