Has anyone towed a glider with their Phoenix?

[No longer active on TMGA]

RAS has a couple of recent threads about using touring motorgliders for towing, including one specifically about the Phoenix. Has anyone done any towing with their Phoenix, and how well does it do the job?

Here's a video posted by the designer of the Phoenix, Martin Stepanek, showing a Phoenix towing something like an LS4:

More Phoenix videos here:

https://www.youtube.com/user/phoenixairplane?feature=watch

[Thermalseeker]

I used to run a glider tow club here at TN89 in SE Tennessee. Haven't towed with a TMG, but I did tow with a 150 hp Citabria once. Downright scary compared to the 310 hp Pawnee I was used to towing with. If you ever decide to try towing a glider with 95 hp I would suggest a lot of room (5000'+), a cool day and a very good hand on the stick in the glider. Expect a very weak climb. Towing with that little horsepower leaves very little room for error, especially if the guy on the string gets out of shape.

[No longer active on TMGA]

Haven't towed with a TMG, but I did tow with a 150 hp Citabria once. Downright scary compared to the 310 hp Pawnee I was used to towing with. If you ever decide to try towing a glider with 95 hp I would suggest a lot of room (5000'+), a cool day and a very good hand on the stick in the glider. Expect a very weak climb. Towing with that little horsepower leaves very little room for error, especially if the guy on the string gets out of shape.

Our club used a 150 hp Citabria for about 10 years. It was adequate for towing our Blanik (with two pilots) from a 400' MSL airport with a 4000' paved runway, and temperatures up to 90 deg (too hot for the pilots over 90!). It probably flew at 1400+ lbs, or about 400 lbs more than a Phoenix would be when towing. Our only regret was choosing it instead of the 150 hp Cessna 150 we also had the chance to buy, because a tricycle gear plane would have given us a far larger pilot pool from which to get towpilots.

Would the 30% less weight, lower wing loading, larger span, less drag, and flapped wing compensate for the 33% less power compared to the Citabria? I suspect it would, but I'd find actual usage reports before I spent any money for the towing ability

I did order mine with a towhook, thinking there might be situations where towing a friend would be useful, but that didn't add much to the cost.

[Thermalseeker]

With the 912s it's rated at 95 hp for 5 minutes. So, keep that in mind. Running at WOT longer might result in scattering engine parts across the countryside. I towed an ASW-20 and an L-13 at Sylacauga, AL, on a 5000' runway in my Citabria. It was a warm day and it did about 300 fpm with the -20 being flown by an excellent pilot, but only about 150-200fpm with the L-13 with two fat boys who were having a hard time staying in my mirrors. I got to the end of the runway with the L-13 and was only at about 200'. I didn't much care for that. With my Pawnee I would be at 800' or higher and climbing 1200-1400 fpm, IOW, plenty of safety margin. Here in the Sequatchie it's not uncommon to experience sink in the range of 500-800fpm on a soarable spring day. I would be very uncomfortable attempting a tow in soarable conditions in something that underpowered on a typical April day. As I mentioned, you would have a very narrow margin for error. If you get one of those guys on the rope who likes to wipe his canopy with the yaw string it could get really exciting, really quick. Not saying it can't be done. I'm sure it can. I just like a better safety margin if my fanny is in the tow plane.

[No longer active on TMGA]

With my Pawnee I would be at 800' or higher and climbing 1200-1400 fpm, IOW, plenty of safety margin. Here in the Sequatchie it's not uncommon to experience sink in the range of 500-800fpm on a soarable spring day.

No one doubts the efficacy of a 310 hp Pawnee

[Walt Guthrie]

Eric, did you see this page on the German certification of the Pipistrel Virus SW 100 for towing gliders (up to 1,540 lbs. gross)?

http://www.pipistrel.si/news/towing-certificate

The Virus has the same 912 ULS as the Phoenix and a comparable weight, but appears to have a much smaller span and wing area (35 ft. and 96.6 sq. ft.). So, in this respect the full-span Phoenix should be better.

[No longer active on TMGA]

I had not seen that. It,s approved to higher weight than I expected, too. Even 1000 lbs would cover a lot of situations, 1540 lbs covers most of them.

[1MoClimb]

When I discussed the suitability of a Phoenix for ownership and use in a club environment with Jim Lee, we talked about glider towing. He stated that gliders up to the max gross of the Phoenix (1320 lbs) would work but that he would limit towing to emergencies when the reg. towplane is out of service. Since our club operates a Pawnee and a Husky, those would be rare occasions. I know that my buddies in Germany regularly tow with these types of touring motorgliders. There was a government grant given to some organization to investigate this subject from a scientific view. I will try and find that paper and post a link here.

Herb Kilian

[1MoClimb]

Regarding my above post:

It's on the DG web site and it is in German:

http://www.dg-flugzeugbau.de/flugzeugschlepp-d.html

You may want to use a translator tool but looking through the graphics gives you an idea what they found out. Results: they towed for example a Discus behind a motor glider with a Rotax 912 (80HP) at an average of 3-4 knots. They also noticed that towing speeds can be slower due to the reduced downwash that motor gliders create. They towed plastic gliders at 65 mph.

Herb

[No longer active on TMGA]

Regarding my above post:

It's on the DG web site and it is in German:

http://www.dg-flugzeugbau.de/flugzeugschlepp-d.html

You may want to use a translator tool but looking through the graphics gives you an idea what they found out. Results: they towed for example a Discus behind a motor glider with a Rotax 912 (80HP) at an average of 3-4 knots. They also noticed that towing speeds can be slower due to the reduced downwash that motor gliders create. They towed plastic gliders at 65 mph.

Herb

I skimmed through the article in the link (which is not the 1500 page report), using my browsers "translate" option, so I may have missed some nuances. They seemed pleased with the towing performance, in general. A 100 hp plane would do significantly better than the 80 hp aircraft they used. They liked the overall quality of the tow: easier for the glider pilot, quieter for neighbors on the ground, and so on. Their cost calculations show it's much cheaper than using a airplane, using the new aircraft costs and mogas instead of 100LL (very expensive in Europe). A US cost calculation comparing a new touring motorglider to a decades old tow plane, and our lower cost 100LL, will come up with very different numbers, of course.