At 12:00 PM 26/03/04 +0930, you wrote:
>
>G'Day,
>
>To anyones knowledge, (both here in Australia, and overseas) has anyone
>ever used a Cessna 150 or TigerMoth for Towing?
>(These are very low power acft and available very cheaply)...
Ron,
The Gliding club of Western Australia used to use a Tiger Moth back in 1961
or so when it became the first club in Australia to own its own tug as a
result of a winch/ autotow ban (later rescinded) at the Cunderdin Airfield
where they operated.
Works OK for older lighter gliders, I'd be a little apprehensive about
ballasted 15m gliders nowadays as it may not have much climb at the high
speeds required. I've had quite a few launches in K6/ES60 behind a Tiger Moth.
Tiger Moths were cheap back then, good ones are sought after collector's
items now.
As for the C150, Kingaroy operates one with a 180hp Lycoming fitted and it
is a *great* tug fully the equal of a Pawnee 235 but with 2/3 the fuel
burn and lower engine maintenance costs.
A C150 with 150Hp Lycoming may also be suitable. I've flown one but not as
a tug.
An ordinary C150 with 100Hp Cont or a C152 with 108 Lyc - forget it. The
aircraft can barely get out of its own way, heavy on a hot day. Not that it
is a bad aircraft, the C150 is quite delightful to fly just underpowered as
built. The Aerobat with the Cont O-240 may be better but still marginal as
a tug.
>This then leads on to the question, if an aircraft is able to be fitted
>with a hook, how does one work out the engine power requirement? Is it a
>hit and miss affair? Or is there a calculation that can be done?
The performance can be calculated. You need to know the sink rate of the
tug when gliding at the desired climb speed, the rate of climb with no
glider at that speed and the weight of the glider and the weight of the tug
and the sink rate of the glider at the tow speed.
It is all just simple physics then to work out the rate of climb of the
combination.
Mike
Borgelt Instruments - manufacturers of quality soaring instruments
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