Thank you for watching. We've been flying for a few weeks in Texas. Cody Mittanck and Donizete Lemos and a few others were down there chasing big distance. We were going after the world record. We did not get weather that was even remotely conducive to that, but did get a taste for, I guess I would say, the gnar of Texas. It's pretty interesting flying down there. I don't think there'll be the mad gold rush for distance that I assumed after Sebastian Cayuse crushed my record a few weeks back.
We went 502k from foot launching in the foothills in Texas on a really stellar day and an amazing flight. Very inspiring. We will be getting him on the show here shortly. We had an interesting time in Texas. It's pretty burly. Landing there is quite an event. Flying a lot of wind, but we were obviously towing to do all that. Flying out of a place called Hebronville, another little airport, little airstrip, which is the only way to do it there because it's all just flat land. I have done quite a bit of towing in the past in Australia and down in the Sertau in Brazil and other places, but this was a good refresher in towing. It was my first experience using the e-winch that Greg Brill, who is my guest today, brought out for us to use and experience.
It's pretty interesting. It's a fully electric winch. It removes a lot of the challenges of other winches, whether they be hydraulic, mechanical, and other winches. It's a fully electric winch. It removes a lot of the challenges of other winches, whether they be hydraulic, mechanical, and other winches. Very cool way. You still need, obviously, a retrieve driver in the case of Texas.
We haven't done a towing show, and I realize this isn't going to be really a show. It's not relevant for a lot of pilots that are just exclusively foot launch, but towing does give us access to flying in a lot more wind, and it does give us access to flying in a lot of conditions in the mountains that just aren't conducive to flying. I'm pretty convinced after these three weeks that towing is also a much safer way to get in the air, but there are a few little contingencies to that. The tow tech operator is pretty important, and the systems are really important. This year, I'm going to be doing a towing show. This show is all about towing, and Greg's a real expert. He's down at MiamiParagliding.com, and he's been doing it for a long time. His winch, the E-winch, is a really remarkable piece of equipment that you could fly with.
It's much, much, much lighter than standard winches. Every payout charges the battery, which is what you use for rewinding it. It's a pretty neat piece of kit. I invite you guys all to go to it. If you're interested in telling me what you think about it, let me know in the comments. If you have any questions about towing or been thinking about getting a winch, check out MiamiParagliding.com. He will give listeners of the Mayhem a 10 % discount. That's worth about $600 on everything but the batteries. The batteries are lithium, and they're very expensive. He doesn't have any margin there. If you use the coupon code CLOUDBASEMAYHEM at checkout on that site, MiamiParagliding.com, you get about $600 off. If you're in the market for a winch, a little plug for him. I really appreciate it. his time and his coming out and spending three weeks in the extreme heat in Texas, helping us out.
And it's a really cool piece of kit, the best I've seen by far. So check that out. One little bit of housekeeping before we get to the show is Willie Cannell is running the Intermountain Wide Open again. All of our comps, of course, in the States, North America have been canceled for the summer, but we are still going to run that Intermountain Wide Open. This is just a very fun event. It's your four best flights. It'll take place in the entire month of August. So your four best flights pretty much anywhere in the Rockies, although they could be towing as well. So New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana. If you're in any of those places and you want to participate, just do a search on Facebook for the Intermountain Wide Open. You'll find it.
It's a hundred bucks to enter and it's just a blast. And at the end of that, we count it all up and all that money gets distributed. So there's two classes, there's the scary hot ships and everything else. And then there's a prize for the longest, just one, the single longest flight in the whole thing and the four best flights, and then just a random winner. And then in the two different classes, so a pretty good chance you're going to actually make more money back than you put in. And it's just a great way for all of us to go have fun and have something to chase in the month of August, especially right now where we can't do much else. So check that out. And then if you're interested in towing, enjoy the show. If you're not, and that's not going to be part of your future, then you can maybe skip this one, but there's a lot of great information here.
Mostly about mostly we cover safety, safety and towing. So if you are doing some towing, stick around, enjoy.
Greg, you're the best. We should have done this live last week or the last few weeks down in Texas as we tried, but it was brutally hot. And it's it's nice to connect with you now over the phone. I'm sitting in Albuquerque. I know you're back home in Miami, but we had a great time towing and chasing distance down in Texas. And I learned a lot about towing. I know you're a tow expert and you've been working at this for an awfully long time. So I thought we could have a great conversation about towing safety. I know. Yeah. You know, a lot of people don't use tow rigs to get up into the sky, but it's becoming more and more popular. And it certainly gives way more people access to this sport than foot launch. And I'm pretty convinced after our time together in Texas that it's also a safer way to get in the air.
Certainly when there's a lot of wind, there's no doubt about that, but probably just in general as well. But you sent me a great email about towing safety that I thought we could just kind of go through for those listeners who are towing or planning to do some towing in the future. Maybe heading down to Brazil to chase distance in the Sertau or Australia. These are often places with a lot of wind and having a good tow tech is super important. But I think a lot of the dangers or risks are pretty easily mitigated if you know what they are. So. Let's start there. Take us through what you've learned doing all the towing you've done in Miami and Florida and other parts of the world.
Yeah, sure. I like to look at tow safety in terms of like four broad categories. You know, you look at the tow rig, the tow system that you have and its design and implementation. You also look at the pilot and their skill or lack of skill. You also have to really consider. In detail, the way you attach the pilot to the tow system. And finally, you look at conditions that you tow in. Those are important as well. So we can just go through those categories, you know, and see what we can glean in terms of towing safety. Perfect. Yeah. So as far as the tow rigs.
Well, you know, there is a lot of different kinds of tow rigs. And of course, it all started with hand towing back in the 70s on the hang glider. And I actually have the privilege of knowing a gentleman here in Boca Raton, Florida, who was hand towing hang gliders like as far back as 1974.
And he his name is Mike Fernetti. And he also taught me how to pilot the wing when you're towing. So I was very blessed to have gotten to know him.
So what do you mean by hand towing? You mean like somebody just running down a road with a rope?
Right, right. Yeah. You take like a thick rope that's easy to hold and you attach to a hang glider or a paraglider. And then, of course, you need a lot of wind so that you don't have to run at like 25 miles an hour or something. And you take like two or three guys and they will run down the beach usually and pull you up. And then you're just going up and, you know, until you release basically.
And is the pilot just holding on to the rope at the other end or just kind of wrapping it around his bar or something?
I'm sure people were doing that in the beginning. But even back then, I mean, they were making their own like tow releases. You kind of rig, you know, two pieces of rope into a release. And, of course, part of it came from the skydiving community that you have all these various releases there. And so people rig their own tow releases and they use that to hand tow.
Crazy. That's wild. That's great. We saw Chrigel doing that. I think it was in the 2013 race. Thomas Therlo, his supporter. His supporter, he was a mountain guide. He towed him up over the Monte Rosa Glacier because it was so flat. It was like, wow, that was genius. They've since banned that, of course. But, yes, so hand towing in the modern age still happens.
Yeah, I have also hand towed a friend on top of a hill. It was kind of a shallow hill, but the wind was over the back and we did not want to parawade any longer. So we towed him up to like 50 feet and he went straight over the back. No parawade. So, yep, still can do it today.
Cool. Okay, so rigs. Yeah, and we'll go in depth a little bit more down the road on how rigs have changed and where they are now, of course, with the e-winch. But let's go through what you're looking for in a rig and what to be aware of.
Right. Well, in the rig, you want to, first of all, check how it makes, how it creates tension. You know, you can have a stationary payload. You can have a in-rig or you can have a payout rig. For a stationary rig, you're just going to be reeling in the tow line. So you don't really need to create any tension. And that's kind of like a scooter tow. You use one wheel of a scooter to, you know, as a drum with your tow line on it and you will just pay the line in and tow up the pilot at a pretty weak tension, you know, as long as your scooter engine is relatively weak. So that's an example of a stationary winch. By contrast, you can have a payout winch. Which is mounted on a vehicle. And you drive the vehicle forward and the winch is moving. So it's not stationary.
And then you spool the line out as you're towing up the pilot. You're spooling out the line under tension. That's very efficient logistically because you don't have to worry about stretching the line or having like this nice field or whatnot. Lots of space to stretch your line with no obstacles and whatnot. Instead, you just keep the line on the spool. And then you just spool it out in the air as you tow up the pilot. So to do that, you definitely need some kind of a system of producing tension. And so what you want to look for in a rig is how does it produce tension? You can have a mechanical brake, you know, creating tension. You can have a hydraulic pump used, you know, mounted to the spool to create tension.
You can also have an electric electromechanical brake. Which uses magnetic particles and is electrically controlled. And people have built rigs with that as well. And of course, today, the newest way to do this would be to use an electric motor as a generator, kind of like a windmill. And then it will create electric torque completely without any friction. And you can create tension that way as well.
Got you.
And so in terms of safety, once you know the. Way that your rig creates tension, then you can right away look into the safety aspect of it. For instance, if you have a mechanical brake, the metal parts will heat up and expand. And it may cause your tension to build up a lot more than you would like. So that's a problem. You have to look out for that. If you have a hydraulic rig, you have to make sure that you pace your changes in tension at a certain pace. Otherwise, you may also have some kind of an unpredictable buildup in tension. So you have to be aware of that.
With electromechanical brakes with magnetic particles, that's mostly, you know, the wear and tear on the brake. And there are some other things that you have to be aware of there. And with an electric motor, it's the same thing. You just basically have to correctly size the motor so that you don't run it too hot and you don't burn it. I
was down in Australia towing a few years back. And a good friend of mine, Alex Yashenko, who unfortunately had a really bad accident this last year in Pakistan, was building these beautiful winches, these electromagnetic winches. And he got this completely sorted. It was a gorgeous winch. But the first few tows, I was kind of the tow lemming, I guess you will. And one of the problems we had there was because the control. Control was, I believe, digital. And it kept going out of control. You know, you would set it at a certain tension, you know, to get the pilot off the ground and kind of the first half of the tow. And it would, I'm using numbers that probably don't, that weren't accurate.
I don't remember what they were supposed to be. But let's say it was supposed to be 60. And it would just, I'd get off the ground 20 feet and it would jump to 100. And it would break the wink length. The weak link immediately. And it was basically a whip stall, which I know we're going to get into later in the show, some of the risks of towing. But, you know, it required incredibly active piloting to then land, you know, because I was only 20 feet off the ground when this would happen. And so, you know, the wing was basically almost in a stall and then shot forward dynamically as soon as the weak link broke, of course. And then, you know, it was basically grab. And then, you know, it was basically grab the wing and land. And, but, yeah, so I, like you said, it's important to know where each of these rigs have a potential weak spot.
Yeah, yeah. And actually, you can even take a broader approach and just say, you know, regardless of the design, I'm just going to assume that this rig is capable of going from like paying out to a completely static line. And the full power of the car is going to be applied to me as a pilot. And so that's why we. We do use weak links. Right. You know, I have come across several people who recommend against them. But my response to that is that if you recommend no weak link, you probably have not towed enough.
Yeah. And, and, you know, one of the, one of the problems we had a lot with, with our tow rig, which is a quite simple system on the boat all those years was it was a, it was a brake system. So it was a mechanical brake system, but the, the wheel was quite wide. And so if you didn't get a really good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of secondary wheel for when you were, when you were rewinding, you know, if you didn't get a really good layout, you'd get a line over and those, you know, you can't anticipate, you know, so the next tow, you didn't know it was there. And, you know, it would just, it would just totally stall the winch. It would be.
Right. Right. So I actually, I would like to make a few points about that. So to safely tow and pay out, you need to have a tight stack of line on the spool. Mm-hmm.
And
the line needs to be either manually or automatically level wound. So it needs to be reasonably level. And the third thing you can do is you can use a tow line that is slick enough to pop out any line digs that you might get. And you should also use lower tension. So if you combine lower tension with a slick line, then even if you have unpredictable line digs, they will pop out easily. Mm-hmm. And the pilot will feel them. But there will be no change in the tow force and you're going to be fine with that.
Interesting. Yeah. I think, I think the only time that would potentially not work was like in our case where we didn't have a very, the motor was electric rewind and it wasn't fast enough. And, you know, if I put a bigger drogue on it, it would just fry the battery. And so it wasn't fast enough. So at the end of the tow, we really had to put a lot of tension on people and kind of slingshot them up and get them really tall. Otherwise, I'd never get the drogue. I'd
never get the drogue
back to the boat. But yeah, so many nuances in there.
Well, yeah, yeah. And of course, I assumed in my last discussion that we have a tight stack. I mean, you have to have some tension there on rewind. You have to have a tight stack. Right. But if you have just a few loops here and there, it does help if you have a slick tow line and if you use milder pressure because then you won't dig the line to the extent that you're going to have a big problem. You might have some minor problem, but not a big one.
Tell me about this slick tow line. Is that just a different – do you still get that from like tow-me-up systems or something or is that a different kind of – is that –
Yeah, I actually get it from Europe. It's a Dyneema as opposed to a Spectra. It's still chemically – it's very similar, but it's just the coating and how it's processed at the end that there is a slight difference. And so the tow line that I use is slightly slicker than what you would get from tow-me-up, for example.
Okay. Okay. Well, I've taken you on a sideways tangent here. Let's get back to the rig. In your notes, we're – have a hook knife at the rig. That's a good idea.
Yes, you certainly – so to continue with the rig side of the safety, you definitely want to have a hook knife at the rig and you want to use a weak link. And of course, a weak link we can discuss more in detail here. But just to recap with the rig, yeah, you want a tight stack. You want to have a line wound correctly or level – you want to have a good level wind. You want to use milder tension and you want to use a slick line that will pop itself out easily. So those are the points about the tow rig.
Weak link. So what – yeah, give us some details on that. How often do you change it? What kind of knots are you doing and do you need to change it for different size people?
Well, sure. Yeah. I mean first of all, if you're introducing a weak link. You have to be mindful that you're taking away some risk factors but you're introducing others. A weak link is just a piece of rope that is tested to break at a certain strength. We usually use the one that breaks at 230 pounds or so.
And you want to tie it with a double fisherman's knot or a single fisherman's knot. I frankly use single fisherman's a lot more because it's quicker. And I don't really have many heavy pilots to tow. So I can get away with the single fisherman's. But the thing is the weak link can wear out a lot faster than the rest of the tow line. So you have to – if you're introducing that into the system, you better make sure it's predictable in terms of its breaking force or breaking tension. And so you should either have each pilot using. Their own weak link and they could for instance put it on their own tow bridle or you should just change the weak link often.
Like if you're towing in high winds and it's a pretty high risk situation like we were just doing in Texas, I was changing weak links every time with every pilot. Really? That's the safest. Yep. That's the safest way to go. It's not that we – you guys were not sinking out. So we were not doing that many tows per day. Right. In terms of at least what we had. What we had to do on those super strong wind days. So I was using a new weak link every time. I just don't want any unpredictability there.
Is that – Greg, if you're – if it goes to 230 pounds, I realize that's not – it's not just 230 pounds to 230 pounds. There's obviously all this give in the system with the line and the farther the car is away from you. Because there's quite a bit of stretch in the tow line. But would you have to up that if you had say a 280-pound guy on a big –
Oh, okay.
Oh, okay.
Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Oh, okay.
in it it breaks at like 280 or so so i would use something like that okay for um super heavy guys but frankly a lot of it is also the toe tension in the system and so if you tow people at a light tension and you have at least moderate winds the wing you know the extra large wing will be efficient enough so that you will have good climb at at low tension and you can get away even with a standard weak link then okay
got you what you
what you don't want to do is you don't want to use a weak weak link on a heavy pilot in light and variable winds because then just by you know sheer nature of physics you have to apply a lot of toe force to get him up and that weak link will not be enough if it's a super heavy guy okay
gotcha yeah another point oh go ahead oh
another point to keep in mind about weak links is that there is kind of a school of thought that if you use a super weak weak link you cannot get in trouble you can have a complete you know newbie tow you up on on a rig that you don't know at all and you won't get in trouble that's not the case even a weak weak link it will not break fast enough for you to not have a significant surge on your wing so don't fall into the trap of thinking that you can use a super weak weak link and then your towing is safe no the tension still travels at a finite finite speed through the system so you can still be you know messed up if you even on a weak weak link so make sure that the tow rig applies the proper tension and don't put your safety solely in the hands of your weak link
okay so it's not a it's not an end all it's not just a safety card that you can throw and forget about everything else let's move on uh greg to pilot so that's your that's your your second piece here right
right um so the other end of the of the system you know you have the pilot and their skill or no skill and so the first thing that they need to do is they have to be able to kite the wing long enough for a tow to start safely and so if you have light winds of course they have to be able to bring up the wing and maneuver their body and their feet in such a way that the wing lay uh stays long enough overhead so that you can safely start a tow so those kiting skills are paramount and on the up you know on the other hand if you have strong winds then you know the pilot needs to kite well in strong winds so that they don't get like yanked up or whatever so that they can still bring up the wing overhead turn around and start the tow safely so that's the most basic requirement you know of the pilot on tow
they also have to understand that you know they still have to fly the wing just like with foot launch they should do a torpedo for as long as it's um you know they're for as long as it's possible for them to do so because they have to keep that wing inflated and overhead and then the tow force will of course straighten them out of the torpedo and and they will be airborne but they still have to do all that stuff they do with foot launch to do that so that's the first thing that you keep the wing you know in proper shape and then of course the next thing that's required of them is to manage crosswind you will almost never have the wind you know straight down the pipe when you're towing and so the wind is going to cross from one side or the other so let's say the wind is crossing from your right you know as a pilot quite strongly what you have to do is when you bring up the wing you have to be prepared to apply your left brake if you're already facing the tow car if you're doing like a forward launch that will be your left brake because that side will inflate and come up first and that happens a lot and you'd be surprised you know you give these pilots a simple tip that look it's crossing from your right be prepared to use your left brake and then their toe their second toe is a lot easier and then of course um you know again continuing this thing if the wind is crossing from your right your wing will want to fly to turn right and to fly that way and so if you just let it happen you're going to be to the right of the tow vehicle your wing will keep taking you to your right and the the tow force will be pulling you to the side like to your left and so the direction of your wing and the tow force will be completely misaligned so what you want to do is as soon as you're airborne as soon as you lift off you want to crab to your left if the wind is crossing from your right
much allowing yourself to drift down the crosswind so to speak and so that will align the tow force with the direction that the wing wants to fly and so of course you would do um you know the same but opposite if it's crossing from your left that's how you manage crosswind yeah
and i would i would comment too that you know i've now done quite a lot of towing nothing like you have but you know i've done it for many years in various parts of the world and i've done it for many years in various parts of the world and it's very it's still to me very unnatural and there are things about it that kind of grab you by surprise it doesn't feel very normal to have your wing behind you like it is in towing especially when there's a lot of wind like it actually kind of feels the same whether there's a lot of wind or very little it's just more rambunctious when there's a lot of wind or it's it's very thermic but i know we're going to talk about risks of towing and things like lockout but you know we even saw it in texas with a really good pilot how quickly you can get caught out by just not paying attention to that tow force that you're talking about and letting yourself drift and we we almost killed a guy in the maldives who had you know he'd done like one flight and there was no wind so nobody on board was kite surfing and my friends a couple friends that i had on board that were good pilots and we were having a blast because we were doing all this towing and flying over these amazing
things and i was like oh my god i'm going to die i'm going to die i'm going to die
and he was doing amazing atolls and doing acro and having a blast and he just was dying to go what really wanted to go and i was so nervous because he had never you know he'd only done like one mountain flight ever in his life and but he was he was a good kite surfer and he had some wing skills so we spent some time with him ground handling and then you know we thought okay well you know we'll tow him off the beach you're immediately over the water you know how bad could this be right and of course you know as soon as he left the boat he was like oh my god i'm going to the ground he didn't steer straight didn't follow the boat locked out i mean i i had no idea how fast it could happen i mean i was actually i was the tow tech i was the one that was in charge of the rig and i just didn't react fast enough he just went sideways and flipped upside down and smacked his head on the water and you know he was if it had been concrete i think we would have lost him you know i mean he would he hit hard enough you know he's only 15 feet off the ground but he hit hard enough that it knocked him out and i just you know until you see it live you don't really appreciate it well
i've seen people smacking into a car like that going completely sideways and then pounding into a car so um you know yeah but to to address your point as a general matter or as a general practice we try not to tow new people in light and variable winds it is so much harder to keep the wing overhead so your first tow should be in moderate winds where it's easy for you to kite and then everybody you know you can start the tow at any moment that you wish that you're ready and then you can signal the tow operator now i'm completely ready i got it under control and now let's go so that's what you want to do and actually just to add to the crosswind point if you have a bow in the lines then you should generally go you know drift sideways continue to drift down the crosswind
and then you can lock out the bow that's another good tip for uh managing crosswinds um but then yeah what you were saying about the lockout yeah like in light and variable winds you know it takes a lot of skill for pilot to keep their wing overhead and frankly to do that they have to always walk back you know if they're in reverse and they have to run forward if they're in forward so the tow operator needs to roll the car as soon as the pilot is trying to run and they have to run forward and they have to roll the car as soon as the pilot is trying to you know towards the vehicle to keep the wing overhead because otherwise the pilot will step over the line and you can have it tangled between his feet and stuff like that so um you this is even though we're discussing the pilot there is a portion here for the tow operator to do as well and they need to be taking up slack as the pilot is managing that wing in light and variable winds so that you know as soon as they start running you know they get the tow force and they get a
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And so, you know, it's, it's a reminder that we shouldn't all get locked into turning one way. You know, you should be able to turn both ways just as, you know, as easily as it should be, you know, it should be easy to do and you should be comfortable with both ways.
Yep. Yep. And when you bring, your wing up like that in turn, of course, if you have more, more of a turn, you know, to cover and stuff, the, uh, the tow operator should keep the tension down during that time and should be rolling forward if necessary to take up any slag that may form. And so all of this is basically two people managing the system of the wing and the tow line until they're ready for the liftoff.
That's another good point that, you know, I found that I think getting plucked at a time like that, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's one of the more risky aspects of, of flying that there is. And it's certainly one of the causes of a lot of, you know, accidents. But I think with towing, it's kind of the same thing that, that we, we, we especially learned this down in Texas when it was so windy is that it was way better for the pilot to just have tension, but not too much on the rig. So it's not going to get tangled up, but that you could run at the wing, you know, either do a Cobra launch, which is really the safest way to do it for sure, or to just be able to run at the wing 20, 30, 40 feet if necessary. But if you, but you can't do that, if the tow tech has, has you tight, you're just going to get plucked.
Right, right. And some people actually like to be tethered as they bring up the wing because, you know, they think they will not be dragged too far, but there is a limit to that. The kind of winds that you guys were launching in, in Texas, it wouldn't work in those winds. You have to keep the tension down far enough so that the pilot, as you say, can run away from the tow vehicle and spool out as much line as necessary to bring their wing up without getting plucked, you know, to bring it up safely and turn around.
Right. Yeah. Okay. So we've covered pilot or have we, do we move on here to attachment?
I think so. Yeah. We pretty much covered the pilot. I mean, you have to have the kiting skills and you have to have crosswind management. You have to have the kiting skills and you have to have the attachment and well, maybe, you know, when you release you can grab your, you know, both of your toggles in one hand and then release with the other. Or frankly, I have been releasing just by laying off one toggle and quickly releasing, but that depends a lot on your tow bridle. And maybe this is a good segue to go into the attachment category, so to speak. So the way you attach a pilot to the tow, so
to speak, is by letting go of one toggle and quickly releasing. So the way you attach a pilot to the tow,
so to speak, is by letting go of one toggle and quickly releasing. So the way you attach a pilot to the tow, so to speak, is by letting go of one toggle and quickly releasing. So the way you attach a pilot to the tow, so to speak, is by letting go of one toggle and quickly releasing. So the way you attach a pilot to the tow, so to speak, is by letting go of one toggle and quickly releasing. So the way you attach a pilot to the tow, so to speak, is by letting go of one toggle and quickly releasing. So the way you attach a pilot to the tow, so to speak, is by letting go of one toggle and quickly releasing. So the way you attach a pilot to the
tow, so to
speak, is by letting go of one toggle and quickly releasing.
So the way you Some of them allow you to attach yourself in such a way that you won't be able to release, you know, without the tension being completely dropped. And you pulling in that toe bridle back into your hands and, you know, disattaching yourself manually. And, of course, you can't pilot your wing during that time. So it's a very bad situation. And then some of them, you know, have like metal parts that can, you know, presumably hit you in the face or the way they attach the toe bridle to the carabiners does not take account of the metal fatigue that can happen with aluminum carabiners. So all of those bridles, unfortunately, have their own shortcomings. I happen to prefer the one that allows you to release with no tension and at full tension.
Because I.
I've realized that for me, that's what I come across the most. But then, you know, other bridles, they have better attachment points and, you know, they are, you know, more comfortable in other respects. So it's I guess it's individual pilot choice. And maybe this is a good point.
A reminder, again, how important a hook knife is when we're flying, not just for towing, just period. But every pilot should have a hook knife with them. But especially when they're towing.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. And even if you're not towing, it's a great idea to have one. It's a great idea. Yeah, for sure.
Reserves, you know, if you land in a ton of wind or, you know, cutting to risers, if you land in a ton of wind and they're just they come in very handy.
Yes. Who know you are you are strapped into like a big piece of equipment. You never know when you have to like cut yourself out of it. So it's a great idea to have one to have a hook knife. And so. So with the toe bridles, you know. A lot of a lot of times what happens, there is a popular model on the market and it has like a skydiving style pin, like either a bent, crooked pin or a straight pin. But the pin has a ring and it's possible to put that ring through the loop that actually completes the whole attachment. And if you do that, then you will not be able to release from the from toe if, you know, if the ring is through that loop. And so the only way you can release yourself is by cutting yourself out.
Or, you know, if the pilot, if the toe operator drops the tension completely, you can go ahead and then, you know, release yourself. So one way to handle that is that loop that completes the attachment. It can be sewn up to be so small that you can put the pin through it, but not the ring. And as long as, you know, people modify that, you know, their individual bridles like that, they can salvage, you know, the old bridles that they have that they technically shouldn't be using. Right. Everybody's using them. And so that's one thing you can do to mitigate the risk here.
Yeah. Let's go through. Let's go through kind of your checklist. What are you, you know, when you're standing there getting ready to tow, what are all the things? Because we've already got, you know, we've all got checklists for when we're foot launching, you know, our shoulder straps and our leg straps and our helmet and our instruments and everything's on and radios and, you know, the live tracking on inReach, all that kind of stuff. What do we have? What do we have to add with towing?
Well, the main thing that I add is that my tow bridle is hooked up correctly, which with my bridle, you can't really hook it up any other way. So I just briefly glance at both sides and that's it. And most other people have to make sure that that pin is positioned correctly and there is no other like twists or whatever tangles. And then one more item that I add to the pre-flight is that the tow line is on the same side as you're going to turn. Sure. Like if you're turning right, I am a left turner. You know, you seem to turn right when launching in reverse. So you have to make sure that that tow line is on your right and I make sure that it's on my left. And then, of course, I wait for the go ahead from the tow operator that they're ready and that the tension is set, you know, according to, you know, if it's light winds, then the tension is already there.
If it's super strong winds, then I want to hear that there is no tension and I can bring up my wing and have room to run towards it. And then you can tow at that point.
Yeah. And I would say maybe, you know, the radio communications are really important. But often the pilot's too busy to deal with trying to communicate. You know, that's the last time you want to take your hands off the toggles when you're just leaving the ground. And so I think a series and I don't know that there's been something totally worked out and it's kind of universal, but it's nice to have some kind of signals, you know, like the bow. Yeah. Yeah. When you're ready to go. But, you know, and people were talking down in Texas about, you know, flapping your legs back and forth and or that the tow that the rig, if for some reason they can't communicate with the pilot, whatever, you're on the wrong frequency or you haven't done the checks right or something's wrong with the radio, then that the driver can do various things to tell the pilot to either ping off or maybe something else.
I don't know what that would be. Oh,
absolutely. And yes, you know, you mentioned radio communication. Yes. Yes. That's, of course, you know, should be part of your pre-flight, even aside from towing. But yeah, if you're towing, then you're going to check with your tow op that you are in radio communication with him. And then, yes, generally we we use a signal such as a bow if we're doing a forward launch, because then when you're all set and ready, you just give this good bow with like bending your knees and completely, you know, stooping down as opposed to just bending your your, you know, head down. Give it like a small. Bow. And then if we are in reverse, then generally the signal is discussed with the tow operator beforehand that it's going to be you bringing up your wing, getting control of it and then turning around.
And that's when you give a nod and then the person can start towing. So that's the simple signals that we use, you know, in Florida most of the time where we tow.
And that's, you know, that's pretty much it.
OK, so conditions.
Well, conditions, we kind of discussed them to some extent already. A lot of it is, you know, if it's raining, obviously you don't want to fly, but mostly it's the wind and it's wind direction and wind speed. And so what I like to say is that you can tow in in strong straight in wind or you can tow in weak crosswind. But don't tow in strong crosswind. So it can be either strong or cross, but not strong and cross, you know, in simple terms. Of course, if you're an expert and you know how to manage crosswind and you have a tow op who's done, you know, high wind launches and all of that, you can get away with it. But as a matter of general practice, we don't recommend towing when it's strong and cross.
Ninety percent of the pilots and tow operators will have, you know, big enough problems so that you should just avoid that. You should reposition. You should reposition and do something else or wait for weaker winds. But I would not tow, as a general matter, in strong and cross winds.
What are the – good advice – what are the main danger issues that you can run into with towing? We talked a little bit about whip stall. We talked a little bit about lockout. Let's go into those a little bit more in depth and others.
Yeah, sure. You know, whip stall is real quick. I mean, you actually told a very good story about that. And that's basically when a tow rig, for whatever reason, applies the whole power of the vehicle to the pilot. And so the wing pitches back and eventually, you know, you weak link with brake. I mean, what we do to prevent that is we, you know, do rig design, you know, a certain way. We use a certain tow line like we discussed. And we also use a weak link. But even with all of that, if you have that, you may get, you know, like a whip stall or a wing like pitching so far back. But as soon as the weak link breaks, you're going to have this massive surge. And from what I know, if you – I've actually – I've had that a few times back in my, you know, experimental days and not using weak links or towing with like a static line.
Because we also – I forgot to mention that you can tow with a static line attached to a moving vehicle and have a load cell to read the pressure. You can do that too. Not recommended by any means anymore.
But basically – so if you're getting into this situation, you have a sudden surge in tension, the weak link breaks and you're about to have a massive surge. What you should do is, you know, take a few reps if you can. But mostly you want to err on the side of overbraking than not braking too much. Because if you overbrake, you're going to fall from maybe 10 to 20 feet and that will be the end of it. But if you underbrake, if you don't control the surge, you may actually – You may actually pendulum into the ground with a lot more force. And as a general matter from the anecdotes that I have heard, you're going to have much worse, you know, massive injuries from something like that than just by, you know, from falling on a stalled glider.
That's a lot more benign compared to the other scenario.
Yeah, I have found that – yeah, that's – I have found that the right kind of brake pressure is just kind of heavy hands. Is that basically what – I mean – I just do that even if it's really windy, you know, even if it's – if I'm 2,000 feet off the deck. You know, I find that I get a little better toe because of that. Maybe I'm wrong. But I find just being a little bit heavy in the hands is about perfect.
Yeah, I mean different people prefer different things. Like I remember in my early toes with this other guy, he kept telling me, you know, let the wing fly fast. Let it fly fast and stuff like that. Generally. Generally speaking, yeah. If you keep the weight of your hands on your brakes, you're going to have a little bit better control. So you will be correcting sooner and you will have a slightly better climb. You know, your toe will be more efficient. And so if you have a short runway, you're going to make the most of it by applying some brake.
Okay. Yeah. Okay. So whip stall is just way too much pressure and they're especially dangerous obviously right off the ground. In that case, better to be – Just break it. Basically stall the wing or deep stall the wing to the ground than potentially being pendulumed into the ground if you don't catch that surge lockout.
Yeah. And just to – whip stall technically I think would be when the wing will fall completely behind you and you would fall to the ground. I don't think that ever happens anymore. Even if your rig goes straight to static line, it's not going to – you know, if you have a weak link in the system, it will break. And so your wing will not fall. If
it falls
behind you, it will surge in front of you. So the surge control advice applies. Okay. Now as far as the lockout, you know, you have two main scenarios. Number one is you have a new pilot kind of like you described in the Maldives that you guys were towing or some other place. I forget. But anyway. So you can have somebody super new and they just can't control the glider. And the thing is they will tell you later, well, I tried to control it but I was pulling brake. But – The glider wasn't, you know, obeying my commands. And it brings up a point that you need more brake input to control the wing on tow than you normally do. So if you expect your wing to react as usual on tow, it's not going to happen.
You need to – you need more brake input to make the same correction.
So that's what you got to do. So the reason this lockout happens with new guys. Is because even if they know what to do, they are not doing it enough. They're not using enough brake to correct the course. Just
describe exactly, Greg, for those who haven't towed or haven't heard of it, what exactly is lockout?
Lockout is when your wing changes course too far to the side so that the tow force starts pulling you sideways. And basically pulls you out of your center of gravity so that the wing falls. Either behind you or to the side of you. But you basically – it's almost like you're on the ground kiting. And if you stop kiting, your wing will just fall because you're not a stable system. So this is the same thing because the wing is so far off course. The system is no longer stable. The pilot is brought up so high above the proper center of gravity that the wing can no longer fly. And it just falls like a piece of cloth basically. And then the pilot falls with it.
And so one scenario I described was it happens close to the ground when you have a new guy and they cannot correct course. And then the tow operator should immediately drop tension and stop the vehicle and basically abort the tow at that point. But frankly, I have seen quasi-lockout situations with advanced pilots as well. And what usually happens is they start to fiddle with their harness or their instrument. And – Right. And this is all like real-life experiences that I'm describing. They will be doing it for so long that they're not piloting the wing in the meantime. And even with a slight crosswind, it's very easy for the wing to start to get off course and closer and closer to a lockout.
And the guy is just not paying attention. And then the tow operator maybe is in a phase that he cannot see or he is not monitoring the pilot correctly. I mean that's why you always want to use like those wide-angle mirrors attached to the top of your regular mirrors. Or you could have a camera, a rear-view camera or some device like that too so that you can ideally see the pilot at all times. Because even if you have a Yahoo who is just fiddling with his equipment too much, you can – at least the tow operator can be spotting him and abort the tow or dump the tension or just radio the guy and say, hey, hey, stop it. You know, pilot your wing. You can't do anything until the problem is corrected.
Yeah, and I would just say as a warning to listeners, if you haven't done a lot of towing or even if you have, that it can happen really, really, really fast. And I remember when I first did my first couple of SIVs with Santa Croce way back in the day behind him on his boat, I was surprised. There were times where he'd be like, follow the boat, follow the boat. And I thought I was. I mean I was at that point 1,000 feet off the deck. And I was just kind of looking around. I was looking around, having a good time and I had wandered off a little bit. And it just doesn't – it doesn't take much. But you're really in trouble if you're low to the ground.
Yes, yes. And of course the higher the tension, the more in trouble and the quicker in trouble you will get. Sure. And that's why in this regard, I like to tell people keep yourself square to the line. Consider the leading edge of your wing. Look at it and it should be roughly perpendicular to the first 100 feet of line that you see. Okay. If that's not the case. If that's not the case, then you are doing something wrong. So that's another way to look at it so that even if you're kind of pointing in the general direction of the tow vehicle or the boat, you can still kind of figure out that maybe I'm not doing things right here. I have a bow here in the line I got to take out or my wing is not really perpendicular to the line. So I better correct this quick.
Other risks?
Other risks. Well, I hope we've pretty much covered all of them that I know of.
Oh, well, I have one.
Oh, you do? Okay, yeah. I
do. This was a combination of factors, all very unfortunate. But the editor of the show, the man, a very good friend of mine, Miles Connolly, was doing an SIV course, I believe out in California. I'm not going to name any names beyond that, obviously. But he's a big guy, a really big guy and tall and he's a heavy guy and strong as an ox. And he – Yeah. And he was doing SIV. And there was a pretty short little area to get him up off the ground. And then beyond that, I wasn't there, but like a whole series of kind of rocky, you know, like small boulders before the water and no wind and big guy, you know.
So obviously what you had to do there is the tow operators, the boat had to be going full speed. And then, you know. And they had to take him off the ground pretty fast. You know, as soon as he brings up the wind, he was doing a forward. You know, they had to adjust for the added weight and weighing and tension and all that. And they didn't and dragged him through the boulders and, you know, pulverized one of his knees, you know. So to me, it sounds like, you know, not an ideal place to tow, obviously. But also the other side of that is, you know, you've got to take some time and talk about with the boat operators.
You know,
you've got to be thinking about these things. You know, not everybody's not the same.
Well, yes. And to me, that falls into the obstacles category. And that's actually I should mention that you want to look out for trees or fences or anything sharp sticking out of the ground or even cars. You know, you'd be surprised how many times. People will park their cars at the wrong space at the wrong time. And then you end up, you know, with a pilot lifting off and immediately slamming into like we even have this guy slam into his own car one day. Right. And so all these obstacles and not to mention, you know, boulders, you know, a car will absorb an impact. But if it had been some kind of a concrete structure, I mean, you'd break a bunch of bones. I mean, you're done at that point. That's for sure. Sure. And so and another thing I thought of.
When you started telling this story is, you know, getting back to stationary winches. If the winch is stationary, sometimes a pilot will instead of a lockout, he will attempt to fly completely away from the winch. And I have I have seen, you know, situations that a person was completely, you know, he got into a lockout and smacked the ground and basically broke his back. Because the rig was not paying out line. A stationary rig was pulling the line in. But then when the person stopped, when the pilot completely turned around, you know, turned his back to the rig and flew, try to fly away from it. He got into a complete lockout and basically, you know, got hit real bad and injured.
And so with stationary rigs, you want to make sure that as soon as you drop tension, the rig is able to free spool. Because somebody might one day might disappear. And
so you decide
to fly away from that rig. And you have to you won't even cut the line in time. You have to let that line pull out. And then ideally, you will go and cut it as soon as you can. That's what should happen. So
what I think we're both saying there is, you know, toe tech is a really serious job. And it's not something that's totally intuitive, even for pilots. But, you know, it does take some training and it definitely takes quite a bit of time. And. You know, you're going to make some. Mistakes doing it. And so you want to have both pilots and rigs that can accommodate that to an extent. Because now that we've kind of scared everybody with these potential problems, I still, you know, and correct me if I'm wrong. They seem like incredibly, incredibly low frequency events. I've never been, you know, other than the time in the Maldives, you know, I've seen some things that were like, Ooh, that's a little bit scary. But that was the only incident I've ever seen towing.
And it seems to me like. You know, all up, if we put it all together, towing is a much safer way to enter the air and do what we love to do then. Foot launch. I mean, just period. Most, you know, most accidents happen, launching and landing. And I think that towing resolves a lot of that if it's done correctly.
Well, yes, I would totally agree with that. I would totally agree with that because, you know, we're kind of dissecting here, worst case scenarios. Sure. And some other things. But the biggest danger that we cannot really account for is nature itself is these invisible, you know, dust devils or thermals or other things in the air that if you do a foot launch and you take a collapse, you know, over a 50 % collapse close to the ground. You know, there is a high probability that you will not survive that flight. And that's with foot launch. By contrast, on tow, if everything is done properly. Like we discussed today. And ultimately, it's relatively easy to get to a good point. And again, you don't want to combine a new tow op with a new pilot.
You want to have an experienced tow op and a new pilot or a new tow op and then you want an experienced pilot. That's to address one of the prior points. Yeah. But then if you do everything by the book, so to speak, you're going to have a wing that is loaded a lot stronger than, you know, your regular free flight. Yeah. Dust devils come through on tow in Florida. And generally speaking, you get rock and your wing kind of wiggles and stuff. And maybe some maybe occasionally you will take a tip collapse. I have never taken a tip collapse on tow, but I have seen people who who have that. But generally speaking, that's the most you're going to get. You're going to get some rocking and stuff, but you are going to, you know, pass through that that demon of a piece of air.
And. And everything will be fine from that point. And so if you look statistically about, you know, into tow accidents and things, I think you will conclude very quickly that towing has been statistically safer than mountain launching, even if you account for the difference in use, you know, the frequency of use. And so that just, you know, proves the point that towing can and is, you know, very safe when practiced properly. And actually, it's even safer than, you know, a lot of foot launches. And if you want to be on the safe side, do learn towing and do practice it.
Greg, thank you very much. I really appreciate it. It is a fantastic method for us to go flying. Certainly like what we were doing in Texas when you're chasing distance and flying in a lot of wind. Those were absurd amounts of wind that I would never toy with in the mountains at all. So it's I'm really enthused. And your idea of potentially, you know, using something like your e-winch, which is compact and light, and you could put it on an airplane with you as luggage, which is just incredible. You know, we could we could potentially do some really cool vol bivs with a winch, which is really neat. You know, you know, Will Gadd back in the day flew across the United States paramotoring. But, you know, how sexy would it be to do it, you know, with your normal gear in a winch?
That'd be really cool. So I think it's it. It opened my eyes a lot to the possibilities and gives us access to a lot of unflyable days in the mountains. And yeah, man, I'm sold. So it was great spending the time with you. And this was super instructive. And I appreciate it, man. Thanks a lot.
Yes. Thanks a lot, Gavin.
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