Our new tug pilot in training Ian Holmes was willing and ready for some more towing practice and so myself, Hoss Tefaili and Simon West with son Jack took the drive out to Yarawah valley to Pete's place. Hoss drove up from Sydney for the day with his brand new RX ready to do some trike towing with it. Hoss had not towed a topless with a trike before, he had towed his C4 behind the dragonfly at Forbes so this was to be a new experience for him. I took my Rev and Sting seeing as I had not done any towing since Sept last year wanted to familiarize myself in the Sting first.
The morning started out with 7/8 cloud cover with 2500 ft base gentle E breeze. Hoss and I set up and Ian was keen as mustard and arrived with his trike ready to take us up as Hoss and I finished setting up at 11.00am. Hoss went off first, good control and nice and steady. Towed so easy till he disappeared from view. Last we saw was Hoss and Ian heading over the hills to the south east. About 20 mins later we hadn't heard from Hoss so a call on the radio to him comes back the reply. "Hey Al, I don't know where I am how do I get back to the Strip" "Where are you Hoss?" “Above the cloud, I can see land and a town in the distance" comes the reply from with a slight tone of concern. A few directions later he flies in from the East over Denman after being on glide from above cloud height for about 20klms. He has some video footage of his solar glory as he flew past some cloud on the way down.
During this time Simon West and son Jack arrived. My first tow with the Sting was so easy, just like my last flight and tow was yesterday. I did a quick familiarization flight ok and came back to go up with my Rev. Simon went up in his Sting, and son Jack amazed us with his camera skills (the attached video is a compilation of Jack's work - including the slow motion part showing the glider coming out of the dolly). My tow with the Rev was easy. Control behind the trike was easy and any yaw quickly controlled with a jab or two of the control bar. I flew back to the strip to do another tow up. Landing though was an arrival, nil wind, switching to tail as I was about to come out of prone, too close to the ground to turn around, and I was going fast along the grass with the inevitable arrival. Minor aluminium bend - not enough to justify nomination for any bent aluminium award thanks.
So I did the rest of my flights that day with my Sting. Had a great time at cloud base. Simon, Hoss and myself had a great time towing up flying around and landing, giving Ian plenty of towing practice in preparation for his examination the following day for his RAA tug pilot sign off. We did about 12 tows for the day in total.
Big thank you to Ian for being a keen tug pilot and Peter Marheine for his comradery and paddock:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPrN8YpJn3c
