Aero Towing

The practice of towing hang gliders has been done using a variety of different methods, the most effective of which is using a powerful Ultralight Tow plane or Tug. We have employed this method known as Aero towing to gain the altitude needed to perform the maneuvers. A 300 ft. Tow line is attached to the tail of the Tug, and then a special towing Bridle and release mechanism is attached to the glider and pilot. The glider is placed on a three-wheeled cart called a Dolly that acts as temporary wheels for the gliders during the tow launching procedure. When the Tug takes off, the Dolly loaded with the glider rolls along the runway behind it. When the glider has reached flying speed, the Dolly is released and the glider rises away from it. The glider is then pulled along behind the Tug. At 2000' they will reach the aerobatic performance area known as the Box, the glider pilot then releases the towline and begins his Freestyle routine.

Judging a Freestyle Hang Gliding Contest

-By RC Dave Freund - Masters Contest Principal Judge

Only highly qualified pilots that are very experienced at performing Freestyle maneuvers are permitted to compete in a Freestyle Contest. A panel of 5 well-trained pilots, judges a Freestyle Hang Gliding Contest. Their task is to identify the maneuvers each pilot performs ("What was that?"); Decide how well they performed it (Was it a good one?), and was the whole routine smooth and linked together artistically?

Each maneuver has a starting direction of flight and climbs to the top of the arc where the judges must determine, to within 10 degrees, the angle that the glider attains. This gives a score for difficulty of each maneuver flown. A perfect loop is fairly easy to spot as the glider stays in a straight line all the way through a "back flip". The beautiful "Rolling" maneuvers are more difficult to judge as the glider twists and changes direction at the same time. Again the angle at the top is noted and so is the change in direction from wings level at the start, to level - but upside down at the top. This takes practice to judge well.

Finally, the judges must count the number of 360-degree rotations when the pilot spins the glider. The difficult part here is to determine when the glider actually begins to spin. Usually a glider takes 1/2 a turn before it drops into a spin... but not always! To score a spin the glider must complete at least 180 degrees of rotation. The lists of numbers are averaged and added up, and then the high and low judge's scores are dropped to give a final score for each pilot competing. To be valid, a contest must have at least 4 rounds flown by each pilot.