Hello, I'm Brandon Martini, a commercial pilot and flight instructor.
And I'm Carson Vasquez, I'm a private pilot.
And you're listening to the Aviation Mentors podcast sponsored by Stratis Financial.
So buckle up because the aviation mentors are taking off.
Of course, welcome back to another great and fantastic episode of the Aviation Mentors
podcast.
Thanks for joining us today.
Today we're going to be talking about something that I love to do.
It's a hobby of mine.
And I don't get to do it as often as I would like, but it gives me goosebumps just thinking
about doing it because it's such an abnormal thing to do in aviation.
And that is towing gliders.
I've been a glider tow pilot for several years now.
And it's one of the most fun things that I get to do as a pilot.
And it was a lot of work to work up to that to be able to do it.
So I'm excited I get to.
I'd love to go up and tow a glider, but I really want to be in the glider.
Actually, there's something about it that just sounds really incredible.
And I just don't think my landings are quite good enough to be confident I can go and fly
one.
Like there's a whole trend going around social media about people saying they can go and
land an airplane, commercial airplane, without having any experience.
And well, I think I can do it.
Brandon probably can do it.
But going to land a glider, I just I don't think I can.
It sounds like a lot goes into it.
And I understand you need a plane to get the glider to actually get up in the air.
But Brandon, what's the process behind it?
By the way, all these people saying they can go land a commercial airliner, they might
land it, but that commercial airliner will never be used ever again.
They are going to slam that thing on the ground, even if they're able to pull it off.
They'll break gear.
They're going to break people's backs.
They would do all sorts of ridiculous things.
I mean, I've done the training in those jets during my CTP course.
And no, it's not the same as a as a piston airplane.
Yeah, I think the only people used to landing that hard are going to be CFI is right.
Yeah, exactly.
They're like actually like carrier pilots, guys who guys and gals who who launch off
the aircraft carriers, they have to slam them down pretty hard.
So probably more like them.
Yeah.
So student pilots, you can be finding becoming a fighter jet pilot, go land on the carrier.
Hey, if you've got that Redbird Sim, you can go to San Diego and go fly and land on the
carrier.
It was one of the first things I did when I got that Sim.
Yep.
And I did it.
Brandon couldn't make me feel pretty good.
The first time.
Yeah, Brandon can do it every time.
Yeah, we get it.
We show everybody.
I understand.
No, the craziest part is Austin did it.
So my son Austin, he's 12 years old.
We've had him on here before and he landed on the first time.
I mean, little boy knows how to fly.
That's for sure.
He has a good teacher, I guess.
Yeah, I taught him pretty well.
Yeah, exactly.
So the process of a glider going up in the air and the glider being able to fly around
is kind of a long one, actually.
It takes a whole crew of people.
You can't just go jump in your airplane and go talk to ATC and take off.
I mean, it literally takes a ton of people to do.
So in the morning, you have a safety briefing.
You have the tow plane go up and do a warm up flight, make sure everything is running
naturally.
The one that I use is a Cessna 182 that tows gliders.
After you have everybody there and you're doing your safety meeting, then you need to
make sure that everyone's in the right places.
You need people like at my glider port, we use a golf cart to tow the gliders around.
And then somebody normally puts one wing down, that way a wing's not dragging.
And that's how we move the gliders around.
So we use it with like an old tow rope that's kind of frayed because you don't want to use
that anymore for towing, obviously.
That's a lot of pressure.
But then what you do is the tow plane will pull the power back quite a bit and they'll
kind of get on the runway.
And then they will hook up the glider and then the tow plane will slowly start advancing
forward until there's tension on the rope.
So you want to make sure there's tension on the rope.
You don't want to make sure there's a bunch of slack.
Otherwise that's not going to feel good for your airplane or the glider.
I mean, you're towing something.
I don't know how much they weigh, but you're towing something that's quite a bit and it's
going to yank it really badly.
So you want to get the slack out of the rope and use hand signals to actually do that.
There's hand signals that they use and you have a little mirror.
At least on my 182 I have a little mirror that I'm like staring into from like a weird
angle because it's an airplane and it's shaking.
So I'm like trying to watch it while it's shaking.
It's pretty funny.
So I watch for the hand signals and once the hand signals go, they normally give a go ahead
and take off hand signal, but I always confirm that with a radio call no matter what.
Now they're going to be on those controls quite a bit right when they take off.
So I'm good with them just using their hand signal as long as I've seen a hand signal
after I made the radio call that we're going because I don't want to pull somebody when
they're not ready to go or something like that.
So I take off from a pretty short runway.
So I use literally 90 to 95 percent of the runway every time I take off, especially when
I've got full fuel and there's a glider being towed behind me.
It's going to slow me down.
I mean normally a 182 and I've got the flaps down the whole time doing like a climb, a
182 will only need, I don't know, 1500 or 2000 feet maybe, but I think I use, I don't
know how much I use at that runway, but it's got to be close to like 2800 or something.
I mean it's significantly more towing an airplane behind you.
So after you take off, there's a bunch of different ways you can move, but you need
to move slowly like 10 degree banks only because you're towing this glider behind you and they
have to mimic your control movements.
If they go up too high or down too low or too far to the left or too far to the right,
they can become in your wake and they do some things called boxing the wake.
That's what a glider pilot would do when they're practicing for like a check ride or something.
But they have to basically be on it with you the whole time.
So there's no communication.
They're just literally following you.
So if you're like following a car on the freeway really close to them going like 80
miles an hour, that's pretty much what you're doing with the glider, but you're getting
really really close.
Really close meaning as long as the tow rope is out obviously.
So after you get up to your altitude that you wanted to release at, then the glider
pilot will actually pull his release.
There's dual releases on both.
So if there's an emergency or something, I can pull my release and if they want to get
off, which they will at some point at whatever altitude.
So if we start catching lift or something like that, they may get off earlier than expected.
But generally I'll go up to 3,500 or 4,500 feet and I'll just go nice slow circles or
big rectangles.
Like in the ACS it talks about rectangular patterns and that's mostly for rectangular
patterns at airports obviously.
But I also use them for towing gliders.
So I make rectangular patterns with towing gliders and I like to stay out of the way
of the other airplanes that are at the airport and other gliders of course.
So you're always looking out for other gliders and other airplanes because most of the time
you're doing these glider tows, they're also in a non-controlled area where people don't
have to have radios.
They could be in really old J3 cubs or something and they don't have radios or not even an
electrical system.
So you need to kind of look out for those things in addition.
But once the glider unhooks, you kind of feel like a weight's literally been lifted off
your shoulders and the plane starts accelerating quite a bit more because now you're not pulling
this giant thing behind you.
And then yeah, you just go back and land.
I always, I mean a 182 is going to not glide as far as a glider, right?
That says it in its name.
So I always land first with the tow rope attached to me.
So I've got this 50 or 100 foot tow rope behind me and it's just dangling.
So I have to make sure I come in a little high so I don't hit like any power towers or
telephone lines or anything like that, or even the fence right before the runway.
I don't want to obviously hit and drag one of those things that's going to cause me to
crash or something will happen to the rope at least.
And I don't want that to happen.
So you just have to come in a little bit higher and do a steeper descent on your final descent
to landing on the numbers or whatnot.
And once you do that, you land and you get off the runway.
And normally I'll leave the engine running if there's a glider after glider that wants
to go up.
But if there's not, I'll just go turn off the tow plane and I'll just wait and I'll
sit in the plane and eat a sandwich or drink water or something.
I'll just wait till somebody calls me back over again and I'll do the same thing over.
I'll get on the runway and I'll do the whole deal.
But it's kind of neat.
Then you're like literally sitting next to the runway staring at it, waiting for somebody
to give you hand signals.
And then you get to see this glider land right in front of you like 50 feet away, which is
pretty neat.
Most people don't land 50 feet away from somebody else.
That's not very normal.
So it's kind of a neat thing to see and watch.
That sounds really cool.
And you said that there's like a 50 or 100 foot rope.
So is there a lot of room for error or do you have to be super precise when you're pulling
these planes?
You have to be precise when you're taking off.
Like getting rid of that slack is really important.
And then I would say if you try to bank 30, 40 degrees, that's going to be way too much
with somebody behind you.
It's just not going to work.
So yeah, you got to be careful of that.
Another thing is a rope break.
A rope can break at any time.
So there's something called a weak link, and that's typically where the rope will break
and it's in there on purpose.
So that's attached to the glider.
We also, like I said, the rope can really break anywhere you want.
So you're always inspecting the rope before you start towing, things like that.
If you start seeing fraying happen, then hey, it's time to get a brand new rope because
you don't want the rope to break.
The rope breaks.
That glider is unpowered, so they're just going to land wherever they can.
If it's a field, it's a field.
Whatever it is, they're going to land in it.
And there's a lot of gliders that land in fields, by the way, especially because gliders
do cross-country flights.
Yeah, I know it boggles my mind.
You should have seen Carson's face right now when I said gliders do cross-country flights.
That was kind of my perspective when I heard about it too.
What do you mean they do a cross-country flight?
How do they get back?
A plane goes with them?
There's normally a team that tracks the plane and they'll go pick them up out of a field
or they can make it to another airport.
I mean, if they're lucky.
I don't even know how to react to that.
I didn't know you could do that.
That sounds crazy.
Same thing happens with hot air balloons, by the way.
Hot air balloons have landing locations, but they're just empty fields.
That's all they are.
And they normally have like eight or 10 different...
That's actually a cool episode.
We should talk to a balloon pilot one day.
If anybody on here is a balloon pilot or you know a balloon pilot, let us know.
I met one when I did a balloon ride about a year ago.
Maybe we should...
I'll see if I have his phone number and try to get him on.
But it was neat.
They told me they have like six different landing locations because only one out of
the six will end up being okay because of the wind or whatever you might have.
So balloon pilots crazy.
But gliders are very similar.
You get to control the glider a little bit more at least, but it's still running around.
Yeah.
So Carson asked a couple of questions on our show prep.
So I'm going to kind of address them.
He asked, can you have a mismatched climb speed?
The answer is no, not really.
I can slow down and the glider will also slow down.
But if I like pull power and like yank up or yank down, obviously the glider is going
to do everything that I do and might make things bad for me.
So if I pitch the nose drastically down, the tow rope will now be up.
So that could get in the way of my elevator because it's attached all the way to the back
of the airplane.
So you have to be careful.
That's why I said no more than like 10 degree banks and even climbs shouldn't be that steep
either.
Not that they really can be considering how slow you're going anyways.
So you can't really have a mismatched climb speed, but you can get yourself in a hairy
situation.
Glider overrunning a tow plane is another question he asked.
It's not very likely.
It's not that possible.
But I guess if I got myself into slow flight and I started slowing down to go and go down,
the glider could hit me from behind.
But in that instance, I would either break off my tow rope because I have an emergency
release or the glider would break off their tow rope.
If there's ever a hairy situation, you just break off no matter what.
And kind of emergency procedures with that.
I'm not going to get into all of them, obviously.
But if something doesn't feel right as the airplane pilot, your number one job is to
release the tow plane.
So you have to aviate, navigate, communicate.
That's the three things you've got to do in that order for a reason.
So if I have a problem with my airplane, if it's not maintaining power or I'm unable to
climb or something like that, I'm going to release that tow plane immediately.
If something doesn't feel right, I just release them immediately.
And unfortunately, it's their problem on figuring out how to get back to the airport or land
in a field.
It kind of sucks.
But it's either I kill myself and them with the tow plane and the airplane, or I can just
release them and I know I'm going to get back and they have a really good chance because
they're a glider.
They can glide and they can go a lot slower and they've got speed brakes.
They've got all sorts of cool things that can help them land.
So the emergency procedures, there's a handful of them.
But the main one is just if your life's in danger or the plane's in danger, just release,
separate from each other.
You don't need to be hanging on.
If you're on like a, I don't know if you did it with your sister when you were younger,
but I know I did it with my sister, or both my sisters.
They sit inside the back of a wagon or something and you're just pulling them really, really
fast.
And if you turn really hard, they're going to flip over.
And if you trip, you better just release them or that thing's going to run up on top of
you.
So same concept, essentially.
I get it.
It's actually pretty funny.
The mother bird is kicking the babies out of the nest.
You're on your own.
But how are you communicating with the glider?
You said that there's radio calls or hand signals, but what radio calls are you making?
What hand signals are you guys giving each other?
Yeah.
So radio calls are saying, I'm ready to go.
Actually if you go on the Soarin Society, ssa.org, which I've been a member of for,
I think since 2017 or 2018, there's a list of hand signals.
There's a tow release, there's a take up slack, there's a hold, pilot ready, begin takeoff
with the ground crew, begin takeoff.
The glider pilot will actually waggle the rudder, which is kind of neat.
Stop engine or release tow plane, emergency stop operation.
That one looks just like you would think it is.
Like you just wave your hands all on the air like frantically and that means stop.
It's an emergency.
Cut it out.
So there's a lot of signals you can do with hand signals and whatnot.
Also there's some airborne signals.
So when you're the glider in the back, you can kind of control the tow plane a little
bit.
So if I pull all the way hard to the left and get in the wake of the airplane, I can
actually pull the tail towards them.
If I'm in that tow plane, I can pull the tail.
So obviously they're trying to tell me something and that normally means, hey, start a right
turn or if they're pulling all the way to the right, it means start a left turn.
Same things like that.
Also sailplane cannot release.
They move all the way out, they release some slack and then they rock their wings like
frantically.
So there's also a few other ones too, which are pretty neat.
So I really suggest going to Soaring Society, ssa.org forward slash soaring dash signals.
And you can actually see all the ones that the American Soaring Society recommends for
American Soaring signals.
In Europe, they are a little bit different.
I don't know what they are in Europe because I've never been to Europe.
So that's it.
Also most people have handheld radios, but not all.
So sometimes you can only use those signals.
And then you always do a preflight briefing like I talked earlier.
And then you also set your squat code to 1201.
And to be honest, I'm not sure if that's just a club requirement and maybe that was discussed
with ATC a long time ago, or if that's a actual code that's supposed to be used for all sailplanes.
So I don't know the answer to that, to be honest.
But most of the sailplanes do not have ADS-B and do not have transponders in them or electrical
systems, for that matter always.
So the tow plane is the one that's going to have that 1201 code for sure.
Got it.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
And before we start on this topic, just one more question.
I was just thinking, if you have to abort a takeoff and you're pulling a glider, what
are you supposed to do?
If you're aborting a takeoff, wouldn't they just stop and or wouldn't you stop and they
just hit you?
Do they have brakes?
They have brakes, yeah.
So they have air spoilers and they have actual brakes.
So if I had to abort the takeoff, then yes, I would just stop and I would abort the takeoff
and I would probably pull their link right away.
And you have abort procedures.
So you talked about it before.
So if the tow plane is going to abort and go right, the sailplane will abort and go
left.
So you already know what's going to happen or go straight ahead, kind of depending on
whatever the field or the terrain around you is.
So you try not to have those problems.
That's why you go pre-flight the airplane and then you go do a test lap because most
problems on an airplane are going to happen or sailplane are going to happen during the
first takeoff and the first landing and the first climb, like all of that stuff.
That's usually when problems arise.
That's why you always hear on like on the news, an airplane crashed or something like
that.
And most of the time it's because of fuel or when I say because of fuel, it's either
not having enough or there was water in it or contaminants in it or something like that.
It's not normally a mechanical issue.
So you just that's why you go do that initial flight in the beginning.
Got it.
I get it.
But let's change the subject a little bit away from the airplane and more towards the
pilot.
So what are the requirements for you to fly as a tow pilot?
And I know you said that the club that you fly, it's a 182, but what kind of plane you're
going to be flying?
Is it typically a 182 or something like that?
Carson, how many hours total time do you have?
I got about 250.
250.
Guess what?
I'm qualified to be a tow pilot kind of in a few other things.
But you have to hold at least a private pilot certificate with appropriate category and
class rating.
So if you are towing gliders with like a Pawnee, then you need to also have a tailwind endorsement
and a high performance endorsement and the tow pilot endorsements sort of talk about
in a second.
So if you're flying a single engine land airplane, like a 182 like I'd use, then all you have
to do is have time and category and class single engine airplane, right?
That's all of your, not all, but most of your category and class time, right?
Also you need to have logged a minimum of 100 hours of PIC in the same category and
class of airplane as well.
So that's why I asked you how many hours you have and you said you have around 250.
So that means you probably have more than 100 hours of PIC time.
And if you don't, then you've signed into a very long time.
It's possible.
I know people that have 250 hours and only have 150 of PIC, which is pretty crazy.
They're just slow movers and it happens.
No big deal.
You also have to have a logbook endorsement from the instructor certifying that you've
received ground and flight training in gliders and is proficient in the areas listed in
61, 69, alpha three, I through IV.
So I actually have those and what those are, it's tow training endorsement by an instructor
and then a tow proficiency endorsement by a private instructor.
So you have to have those two things.
But outside of that, you just really need to really know your airplane.
I think in my club, you actually have to have 50 hours in a 182 for the insurance purposes,
which I've have a lot of.
I have at least over 100 hours in 182.
So you actually have to have that in addition.
Some of the other tow plane locations that I've been to, they use tail wheel aircraft
and they're single seat tail wheel aircraft.
So they actually make you have like two or 300 hours tail wheel and be very proficient
with it.
And then they basically just hand you the keys to the airplane and like, go have fun.
You have to know how to fly.
And if you don't know how to fly, it's not going to work out for you.
So the clubs themselves may have different requirements because of insurance.
Insurance rules everything in the aviation world.
And it's just kind of how it is.
And last question is, I'm sure a lot of people are going to ask this.
So how do you get into towing lighters?
It's kind of a niche thing to start doing, especially when it's not in every airport.
So how do you get into it?
So what I did actually is I've always heard the saying that if you're a glider pilot,
you will be a better pilot overall because you'll know what it's like to handle an emergency.
You'll know what it's like to land without an engine and you'll know what it's like to
manage energy.
And energy management in airplanes is not taught as much as it should in learning how
to fly a private pilot all the way up to commercial.
They don't talk about energy management.
Most people don't talk about energy management until you're doing aerobatics or they kind
of talk about energy management when you're doing a spin because you have to pull power,
part of the pair acronym.
But people don't actually manage the energy.
I manage the energy a lot when I'm doing multi-engine flying, especially single-engine multi-engine
flying.
That's energy management based on airspeed and density altitude and VMC speed, all these
different things.
But most people don't talk about it at all.
So I wanted to be a better pilot and that's why I started looking for gliders.
So I actually started looking up like, what's all the endorsements you can get as a private
pilot or an instrument rated pilot?
And I saw a tail wheel, of course, and I see high performance and complex, which I already
had all three of those.
So you've always been a collector.
I've been a collector of ratings and endorsements, yes, for a long time.
It's one of my favorite things to do.
I know that sounds crazy, but it is.
So I found this glider place and it was in Lake Elsinore.
And I think it was Lake Elsinore, Soaring or something.
I'm not sure what it was.
I don't go there anymore, so I don't know the name.
But I went there and I met a guy named Joe Scarcella, which has now become a great friend
of mine.
He's also a DP for gliders.
And he did my first flight.
He's a great guy.
He's this short Italian dude who just has an attitude, but he's totally soft in the
inside.
He's an awesome guy.
And shout out to Joe.
If you ever get a chance to fly with him, you should.
He's a great pilot and fantastic guy.
But I meet him after I go take the safety quiz and stuff and they make me take all these
tests on safety, which was really good.
And then Joe and I get in the sailplane and I'm like, unsure of what I'm going to be
doing today.
Like how much work am I going to be doing in this airplane?
Is he going to let me fly it at all?
I don't know anything.
My expectations were very zero.
I didn't know what to expect.
So we get up in this glider and he shows me what it's like to get pulled by an airplane.
That was an exhilarating experience.
I was up there with landing on water for the first time.
So we get up there and he shows me all these different things.
We end up staying.
There was no lift, so we're only up there for like 20 minutes that day.
But then after we got back down, he showed me how we land.
I did most of the landing, but he did the speed brakes and stuff like that because you
have to use energy management a little bit differently.
So we ended up doing that and that's how I kind of got started.
But it all started on a Google search.
I just looked up where can I go fly gliders at?
And then I looked.
You can also look at your sectional.
So your VFR section will have little pictures of gliders all over it.
Go find those little pictures of gliders and then if you have four flight, just click that
and you'll find whatever soaring location there is and you can call them and ask how
you can get started.
But I highly suggest it.
It was exhilarating.
It was fun.
I still don't have my glider rating yet.
I didn't go enough, but I do enjoy towing gliders.
That is enjoyable.
Yeah, well, towing gliders, it's not something many pilots consider as a way to even build
hours.
A lot of people just don't even think about it.
And most people think of doing long cross-country flights or getting some sort of a low time
commercial pilot job or doing volunteer flights like we talked about in our last episode.
But as pilots, we really just continue to learn and grow with every flight.
So I hope this episode has added kind of a new dimension to your understanding of the
aviation world.
Absolutely.
Go and get that glider rating.
Go get your glider tow pilot endorsements.
Go do all the things that are fun to be doing as a pilot.
It's not all just flying from point A to point B or flying with passengers.
It's more fun than that.
Go do some cool things and you will really enjoy it.
I know that, like Carson said, you're a rating collector.
I am.
I love collecting them.
The only one I don't have right now is the night vision goggles one because I don't know
how to get it.
I've looked it up and no one offers it.
I'd have to be in the military to get it.
But I really want night vision goggle training.
I think that would be so rad.
So if anybody's on here who has a connection to get me night vision goggle training, I
am 100% in and I would virtually have no budget because it's that freaking cool.
Kevin might be able to help you out with that one, right?
You know what?
Maybe he could.
Yeah, yeah.
We've got a guy.
Yeah.
As always, if you want to reach out to either one of us, you can reach us via email.
You can reach me at Brandon at AviationMentors.com or Carson at AviationMentors.com.
And as a wrap up for the day, remember, we're here to guide you in your aviation journey.
So fly safe and enjoy the ride.