A hang gliding towing tale

by Cory Carlson

: I arrived in Cosmos, Minnesota, at the east-facing tow road, excited to fly. This would be the first time I would make a solo flight not under the direct supervision of my instructor, Doyle Johnson. Minnesota has few training hills, and most foot-launch sites require advanced skills to fly safely. As such, training begins with towing. Given that weather in Minnesota can be fickle, patience during the training period is essential—it took me about two and a half years from my first flight to get my H2 rating.

On this mid-September day, my main goal was to get two or three tows and maybe even enjoy some gentle end-of-summer soaring (without doing anything stupid in the process, of course).

Neil Sirrine of SDI Paragliding typically pulls paragliding students but is happy to tow anyone who wants to come out on a good day. On this day, he was towing both paragliders and hang gliders, using the platform launch method for the latter.

For the uninitiated, a platform launch on a truck consists of putting the glider on the truck (or trailer). The base tube of the glider sits loosely in a cradle, and the nose is connected to a release on the truck with a short section of rope and held at a low angle of attack. The truck drives, and once at a safe launch speed, the pilot pulls a lever that releases this nose connection allowing the glider to fly up off the truck (see sequence below). The glider pitches up and flies away from the truck rapidly. The tow rope is connected to the pilot (similar to a ground tow) with the rope under the base tube. The tow rope pays out at about 70 to 100 pounds of tension, which generally results in climb rates between 300 and 600 feet per minute under normal conditions.

This particular day was my first tow on the east-facing tow road, and I only got up to about 1,200 feet on my first tow. As Sirrine pulled me down the road, I saw the truck was approaching what I thought (erroneously, as it turned out) to be power line poles crossing the road, so I released early. The thermals were weak, and I still had much to learn about soaring, so I had a relatively short first flight.

I landed at the launch site and waited while two other pilots towed up. With experienced pilots, a typical launch cycle takes a little over 15 minutes, and, for me, the wait is usually very educational—I still learn a lot watching others.

When my turn came around again, I loaded my glider onto the truck and began following the checklist for setting up the tow and preparing for flight. Sirrine hopped in the truck, did the usual radio checks, and off we went. The truck, glider, and I all accelerated to 30 mph as normal.

Typically I release around 32 mph. That tow, however, I was a bit slow and released closer to 35 mph. Tension had built up on the release lever, and I had to pull it a bit harder than expected, but the nose freed, and my glider climbed off the back of the truck with its normal “homesick angel” rapid initial climb.

At that point, things became atypical. The first thing I noticed was that the glider was pitching down fast, even though I only had moderate force on the base tube and the base tube was in the correct position. The next thing I noticed was that the drogue chute was inflated and still in the back of the truck. At that point, I put all the pieces together and realized that I was not on tow; I was merely flying in formation with a pickup going down a gravel road at about 35 mph!

The first thing I did was pull in to get my airspeed up—stalling from a nose-high attitude while only 20 or 30 feet above the ground is low on the list of things I want to do. However, this brought me perilously close to the ground (within two or three feet), so I brought the glider back up a few feet. At that point, the glider was down to trim speed, and I elected to land on my stomach instead of trying to get upright and get my feet out of the harness. I touched down gently in my cocoon harness, with the glider rolling onto its wheels a second later.

By the time I was standing up, Sirrine had backed the truck up to me. It was merely a matter of stepping up, putting the glider back on the truck, and hooking up all the ropes. While hooking back up, we went over every release carefully and could not find the reason for the accidental release. The setup looked good, so we took off again. This time everything went as expected— the release, the tow, and getting off the tow all went normally. As for what happened on the prior flight, we still don’t know for sure. My best guess is that I accidentally bumped the tow rope release on my harder-than-normal nose-release pull.

The flight was not very long—for the most part, it was an extended sled run. The landing zone at that time of year is nerve-racking for a novice hang glider pilot. The narrow road leaves little room for error—honestly, it felt like I was at the edge of my skill set. But the landing practice was the real reason for making the flight. My landing was not perfect, but I landed on my feet, didn’t hit anything, and kept my glider airworthy, so I called it acceptable.

After landing and prepping for my next flight, a more experienced pilot walked up, slapped me on the back, and said, “That was scary to watch but you did a good job.” I was a bit confused, and my first response was to apologize for my landing delaying other tows. (The best stretch of road for landing is right in front of where the tows start. The SDI team is aware of this and keeps an eye out for incoming traffic. They left this nice area open for me when they saw me coming in and communicated they were holding for me to get down so there would not be any ambiguity.)

The pilot laughed and said, “No, I was referring to the accidental release!” It hadn’t occurred to me until that moment how badly that situation could have gone. Stalling from 30 feet would have, at best, resulted in me diving into a gravel road. At worst, I could have dropped a wingtip and cartwheeled myself into the ditch. If the tow operator had hit his brakes too early when the rope was released, I would have either flown into the back of the truck or had to dive into the ditch.

Quite a few correct split-second decisions had to be made for the situation to have a happy outcome. I wish I could say that superior piloting skills saved me, but I was still relatively new. The truth is I’d had a lot of recent and thorough training in towing, and Sirrine is a very experienced tow operator. My training involved a lot of scooter towing, including some simulated rope breaks in that training. It is easier to deal with an emergency when you know it’s coming. After practicing a few times, it is no longer an emergency; just a nuisance event where you know how to react without having to stop and think.

The takeaway for me was the importance of practicing emergency procedures. I plan to perform a self-audit to examine other emergency procedures where my skills may be lax. I have added throwing my reserve to the items I need to practice.

Packing up at the end of that flying day, I called Doyle Johnson to say thanks for the training and the attention to detail. A few minutes of training took a potential disaster and turned it into another log book entry and an amusing phone call with my instructor.

Have fun, and stay safe.