Aerotow

Aerotow soaring requires a powered aircraft to tow the sailplane into the air. This is the way that full scale sailplanes are launched. Once in the air, the pilot releases his sailplane from the tow line and begins to search for thermal lift to stay aloft.

7/12/22 Form Kevin Kavaney. Sledworks report

This was the 10^th anniversary of our event, and I believe we had 29 paying guests this year from as far away as Kansas, Illinois, Wisconsin and South Dakota in addition to our own local members.

We had lots of volunteers who helped set up the field days before the event began and then again at the end... an event like this can't happen with out volunteers...

We never lost any flying time due to weather conditions.

WE had a new tow pilot this year, Mike Fox from Illinois, who flew splendidly with his scratch built PegaMorphsis....a highly modified Pegasus platform.

He had never towed with it before but you would never know it as he was great and he flew his pants off.

We had another new tow pilot as well, Ryan Nelson from South Dakota, who won the award of: "the kid with the most toys" award.... great addition as well...every time I turned around he was flying something different..

I believe there were some great glider flights during the event but I was so busy towing that I only got a few short glider flights in...maybe next year...

I had a mishap with my Cmelak while practicing a few days before the event that had me really down, but I resurrected my antique 1/3^rd scale Space Walker and was able to tow about 90 % of the sailplanes that approached the staging area, "the little tug that could" I hadn't towed with it in like 6 years.

It was great to see so many people again and we want to thank everyone who made this event a success.

Kevin and the Sled Works team.