A basic way to roughly compare performance as a tug is to look at power to weight ratios.
Find the weight of the Citabria and the glider you want to tow. Divide the power by this total. Next you can look at the performance of a Pawnee towing a glider. Again divide the Pawnee's power by the combined weight of the Pawnee and the glider. This is really a rough way to compare performance, but should give you a rough idea. You can also look at the climb rate of the Citabria at say 70 kts (or what you want to tow at) and then knock it back by the ratio of the weight of the Citabria divided by the combined weight of the Citabria and the weight of the glider. Again a very rough way to work it out to give you an idea. Certainly a Citabria may tow an Arrow or a Boomerang. Have a look at the Super Dimona's performance when towing - the Dimona operating at 700kg or thereabouts and a 115 HP engine staggers skywards when towing a single seater. I don't know the climb rates achieved. Anthony -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John Hoye Sent: Sunday, 20 January 2008 4:05 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia. Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] Glider Tugs Jenny, I've flown a couple of flapless Citabrias in England. One had the 150hp carby engine and the other was fuel injected, maybe a 160hp. We operated from a small airfield with 950yds, being the longest run available and then a climb over trees at each end. They were nice to fly, easy to operate but lacked grunt because both engines were well into their hours. Their performance would be badly affected by the high temp experienced in summer in Oz. When I started gliding (late 60's) we used a 130 hp Tiger moth which was good with the old gliders we had. Then we used 150 hp super cubs and these were good in their day. A lot of these were upgraded (at other clubs) to 180hp fixed pitch to get 700ft/min climb rates. With the advent of glass fibre two seaters weighing around 900lbs better tugs were needed and Pawnees were used at the smaller clubs (like ours). Clubs operating from long runways in the UK still used Robin D400 180hp tugs because of their fuel efficiency and low maintenance costs compared with the Pawnee John ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jenny Ganderton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Aus-Soaring" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2008 2:14 PM Subject: [Aus-soaring] Glider Tugs > Has anyone any experience of using a Citabria 160hp 7GCBC as a tug? Is > 160 hp enough? > > Jenny > _______________________________________________ > Aus-soaring mailing list > [email protected] > To check or change subscription details, visit: > http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
