First Contest Tows

The year is 2012 and I am flying my very first contest in the mighty Schweizer 1-26. Various club members have brought me along on cross country flights and given me hours of briefing on contest operations. Finally, it’s time to compete! I’ve settled into the cockpit, belts are on, the checklist is complete. I watch my towplane pull-up and someone quickly connects the rope. As the wing runner disappears from in front of my airplane, I give one last look down in my cockpit to make sure everything is in place and WHOA, I am moving! The tow was initiated, I grasp with my hand and quickly find the control stick, shoving it forward to lift the pinned tail off the ground. While startled, I continued a normal and uneventful tow and flight.

Learning to Fix Mistakes

What I accidentally did was remained a creature of habit, and contest operations can be significantly different than normal operations. Normally, strictly adhering to a habit or flow is a good and methodical way to assure no tasks are missed in an airplane. But in this case, I needed to adapt to a new set of operating procedures. I received the full briefing and I was told how launch operations would be conducted. But when I got in my same airplane and lined up behind the same towplane I always line up behind, I fell into my comfortable routine of taking a breath and one last look around before I wag the rudder and initiate the takeoff. However, in most contest tows, your participation in opening and closing the tow hook is your communication that you are ready to fly. IMMEDIATELY.

A Few More Pointers on Contest Tows

 I learned throughout my first contest was that it takes a lot more work than a normal day to be prepared and ready to fly in a contest. You need to be in the cockpit and fully prepared to fly much earlier than you might normally get ready if you normally only use one towplane. With a grid and multiple towplanes, you may need to start getting belted in with 4 gliders in front of you instead of just 1 or 2. You should probably get all the electronics powered up early in case that task didn’t save correctly or your GPS takes forever to acquire a lock. Once the towplane is in view you should be 100% ready to fly, and happily waiting for that slack to come out and the towplane to snatch you away into that cumulus filled sky. The canopy should definitely be closed and locked before the rope is hooked up because, if done correctly, the towplane might not even stop rolling before initiating the takeoff roll. Once airborne, that tow is only going to 2,000 feet and in US contests we generally set a rule for left-hand turns while thermalling in the start cylinder or within 5 miles of the airport.
 

Final Thoughts of First Minutes of Contest Flight

Here are some things I’ve changed to allow smoother transitions to contest flying. Firstly, being 100% ready for flight before the towplane pulls in front of me, so my eyes never have to go back heads down in the cockpit. Then, I make it a point to try and make my first thermal a left hand turn off tow after the standard right bank for separation. I used to enjoy pulling the release right into a nice right bank to climb up and away, but with a right bank for tow release and then a left turn for the thermal, it allows me to keep the towplane in sight much longer after tow release to make sure we won’t meet each other again after our respective turns; it also keeps me primed for doing it correctly when contest season comes around. I also never shout on the radio “glider off tow, thank you towplane!” for fear of all 5 towplanes in the air thinking their glider got off! If I communicate, I make sure to use whatever means of identification for the specific towplane I am talking to. These are pretty simple operational procedures, and most aren’t necessary in a single towplane operation. (Especially one where you have to hook up your own tow rope!) But my point is simply to practice correctly so that when the day comes that I get to fly a large contest with fast operations, I won’t get caught with my hand off the stick and my head down in the cockpit when my takeoff starts!

Jacob Fairbairn Jacob got started in soaring at 13 as his father devoted countless weekends transporting him to the airport to run wings, tangle up ropes, and have a little too much fun on the golf carts. He spends most summers racing or snatching a towplane to tow for the nearest contest. Jacob has one day win at a national contest and flies a Discus a. He is a First Officer for Skywest Airlines and an A&P Mechanic as well as an avionics technician. Outside of the soaring season, he can normally be found flying a jet into Aspen, dumping some skydivers out of a Skyvan, or eating his bodyweight at Whataburger.