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Recent
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Dragging
Nylon
November
22, 2013
Whether you're a pilot or not, you've see
the ubiquitous tow plane, clattering along over the beach or
circling the stadium, pulling the banner exhorting you to GET
THE CRAB SPECIAL AT PHIL'S, or some such message. As pilots,
many of us have observed the banners being picked up at an
airport, but the general public and even many pilots have no
idea how the process works.
I joined the stream of
hard working tow pilots who for one reason or another flew the
banner aircraft back in the seventies. Unlike many of these sign
draggers, I didn't need to build time, I was just trying to
avoid starvation. During this era I would have taken on any
flying chore that wasn't overtly illegal or positively lethal.
To keep myself fed I was already doing instructing, charter,
survey flying and sightseeing rides, so it was not a big step to
add one more hopeful income stream and order a banner kit from
Mr. Gasser down in Tennessee and then teach myself how to use
it.
At the time I had a PA-12 Super Cruiser in the
hangar and that good and stout airplane seemed a natural choice
for towing duties. We ordered and installed the tow hook and I
read all the information that Mr. Gasser had sent along with the
banner and I was ready to become a tow pilot.
I
assembled the trial banner, a tedious process and one that I was
to hate forever after, by fastening each letter to a fiberglass
pole with about eight nylon tabs inserted into spring clips,
repeated ad infinitum until fingers were bloody and the banner
was complete and laid out on the grass. I then stretched out the
tow rope, which was about 150 feet long with a large loop on the
airplane end and put together the poles that were to hold the
loop aloft about eight feet above the ground, while I swooped
down and snagged it with the grappling hood on end of the tow
cable.
The tow hitch was equipped with a quick release
for dropping the banner before landing so the loop in the tow
cable was placed in the hitch and the tongue was locked over it
and the cable stretched back up the side of the airplane. I
mounted up and my helper handed me the cable and grappling hook
through the open window and I held it tight while I made my
takeoff. Once aloft with a little altitude I threw the hook and
cable out the window and it dutifully streamed back and trailed
the airplane. I stuck my head out the open window and watched
the hook and judged it's cruising altitude to be about to be
about ten feet less than that of the tail wheel. Armed with this
valuable information I made my first approach on the tow rope,
stretched between the pickup poles.
In order for the
banner to peel off the ground and not drag, it was laid out on
the ground backward, so the pickup would cleanly lift it into
the air behind the airplane. Mr Gasser had stressed that after
the rope was hooked one was to pull up "sharply". On
each of my first attempts the hook kept sailing over the rope
and missing the loop. I was consistently overshooting. I gave it
some thought and realized that I was trying to hit the rope with
the hook itself and I reasoned that as long as the hook was
lower than the rope the rope would find its way down the cable
to the hook. My next attempt was successful and I gunned the
Piper and pulled up. As I looked over my shoulder through the
rear window I saw the banner curl perfectly off the ground,
right itself and fall into trail behind the airplane. We were in
business.
 I
had a friend in town who owned the local radio station and when
I told him I'd like to have a sound system to jazz up the
banner, he found me a giant old megaphone speaker. We mounted it
in the rear seat where it protruded out a removed rear window. A
tape player with recorded marching music in an endless loop was
added and the effect from the ground was to lift any eyeball in
the vicinity skyward as we sailed overhead. We also wired in a
microphone which gave me the world's largest ramp hailer and I
used it to startle folks on the ground as I wished them a good
day. I remember early one morning, asking a surprised farmer on
the path between his house and the privy, where he was going and
I also recall admonishing the workers on a strip job to 'clean
that mess up when you're through'. I was having fun.
That
fall was an election year and the banner division of our little
empire became very busy towing for the local politicians running
for office. We had commercials taped and proceeded to give noisy
exhortations from the sky to vote for Judge Maximum, while
pulling a banner behind us that urged the same thing.
The
flights that I was doing were for contenders for county offices
and my tows were usually only a couple of hours, which would
pretty well cover the populated areas of Upshur County.
One
day though, I got a call from a man running for the State
Senate. He wanted me to pull his banner from Buckhannon all the
way down to the Capitol in Charleston, then back again. My
mental cash register did it's Ka-Ching as I added up all the
hours it would take to do this and I quickly agreed to the
flight and started assembling his banner.
The next
morning dawned clear and bright, a perfect fall day for raining
political propaganda from the skies I thought
Since I
knew I would have to fuel in Charleston, I would also need to
pick the banner up again there, so I broke the pickup poles down
and stowed them in the back of the Super Cruiser. My banner grab
was perfect and I left Lewis Field in the late morning and
started grinding my way southwest. With the drag of the banner
my normal ninety knot cruising speed was reduced to about sixty
knots and I needed a higher than normal power setting to
maintain even that. The wind was out of the southwest at about
ten knots, so I was making headway over the ground about as fast
as a loaded tractor trailer. I kept an anxious eye on the fuel
gages as the banner flapped along behind me and the recorded
commercial repeated itself over the loud speaker about four
thousand times.
After an age I reached Yeager Field,
received permission from the tower to drop the banner to the
side of the runway and landed.
After fueling up and
making arrangements with the tower for the pickup something
suddenly occurred to me. After I snagged the banner I was going
to head straight north east and work my way back to Buckhannon,
so I'd be leaving my pickup poles behind. Dang, I didn't want to
do that. Hmm, what if I just had a couple of guys hold the loop
aloft while I snagged it? That should work, shouldn't it?
Scouting
the FBO I was happy to find a couple of airport bums who were
just soaking up aeronautical ambiance and needed some excitement
to remember the day by. After outlining my plan and painting a
picture of an unusual adventure in which they would have a major
role, they agreed to help. We moved out to where the banner was
stretched on the grass and I showed them the loop of tow rope
and demonstrated to them how to hold it as high as they could
above their heads while stretching it between them, subbing for
the absent pickup poles.
There was a nasty crosswind
on the active runway, and as I aligned myself with the banner I
noticed I was crabbing to the right twenty degrees or so to
maintain my track. Although I was aligned perfectly with the
middle of the loop, just between my two valiant substitute
pickup poles, my grappling hook must be
oh crud.
I've
stood near a banner that was being snatched and I can tell you
that you that the hook announces its arrival with a very evil
sounding hiss as it hurtles through the air on its way to the
loop. Glancing over my left shoulder I saw my left pole had
suddenly morphed into rapidly receding heels and elbows as the
hook whistled by at over a mile a minute. I landed to reassure
the troops.
Unbelievably,
my brave poles guys again held the loop and I made a much
revised track toward the loop, the airplane being to the right
of the right rope holder. Even more strangely, I snagged the
banner this time and made my uneventful way back to Lewis Field.
Flying home I pondered that if I ever employed this technique
again, I needed to supply nostril plugs to the crew, to protect
against their unintended pickup.
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