Aero-Tips!

A good pilot is always learning -- how many times have you heard this old standard throughout your flying career? There is no truer statement in all of flying (well, with the possible exception of "there are no old, bold pilots.")

Aero-News has called upon the expertise of Thomas P. Turner, master CFI and all-around-good-guy, to bring our readers -- and us -- daily tips to improve our skills as aviators. Some of them, you may have heard before... but for each of us, there will also be something we might never have considered before, or something that didn't "stick" the way it should have the first time we memorized it for the practical test.

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Aero-Tips 11.13.06

We all do things we're not terribly proud of. One of those dark secrets of my past: I towed banners.

Now, banner towing is an honest occupation. It involves spending hours weaving together the letters and symbols that make up a banner (I imagine the process is simpler now, but the last banner I was paid to tow read "Elect Bush and Quayle", so it's been a while). Then you have to lay the banner out carefully on a flat piece of ground, usually on or alongside a runway. From the banner you string a tough line that hooks at the top and bottom of a pole that forms what will be the leading edge of the banner in flight, along the ground several dozen feet and then 12 to 15 feet in the air between some flimsy poles. You want flimsy poles, not stiff ones, in case you hit one (just kidding).

Now you launch the airplane with a tow cable and hook attached. The tow hook on our very tired 160-hp Cessna 172 was a three-pronged grappling hook. The cable attached to a quick-release hook mounted (with Supplemental Type Certificate authority) where the tail tie-down ring usually goes. The cable is not retractable, so you need to string the cable along the side of the fuselage and take off with the hook in the cabin. I found eventually that bringing the cable in through the open copilot window, and securing the hook with the seat belt in the right seat, gave me a quick-release for the hook. After takeoff you throw the hook overboard and (if it doesn't bounce of the tail or, as just now occurs to me 16 years later, jams in the elevator or rudder) it streams out behind the airplane.

Hook deployed, it's time for a bomb-run at the airport. The hook trailed about eight feet below the airplane, if I remember correctly, so the idea was to fly level at the rope between those flimsy poles just high enough that the propeller and landing gear cleared the top. It helped A LOT to have the airport manager volunteering on a handheld radio giving me "fly higher, fly lower" guidance to make the snag. He probably had his pre-cell phone CB radio handy to call the fire department if needed, also.

When all was in place and the hook about to hit the banner rope I'd hear "go, go, go!" on the radio, which was my cue to hit full power and pull up sharply. To get the lead-pole of the banner cleanly off the ground it took an extreme pitch attitude, far steeper than Vx, so that the banner jerked up, not forward, as it left the earth. That's when the drag kicked in, and indicated airspeed dropped 20 knots or more. Once I felt the drag I had to push the nose over into Vx attitude to avoid a rapid stall. My hand was on the "gear shift" mounted between the seats (part of the STC) that was the banner release in case airspeed got too low in the snag.

After a very slow climb to about 1000 feet -- optimal, I was told, for banner readability -- I'd fly a prescribed track until the engine overheated (full throttle netted only about 80 knots indicated airspeed with a banner in tow, bad for cooling) or I was low on fuel to get the maximum utility out of the huge time investment of getting airborne. Then it was back to the airport and fly low over the drop zone, but not so low the banner snagged a tree or a fence. Pull the gear shift and the banner dropped, amazingly almost straight down because of its enormous drag. Then climb into the pattern and land.

It was about as jury-rigged and on-the-edge as anything I've ever flown, which is why I'm not proud of doing it <g>. I'm sure most banner operations are a lot more professional... and profitable.

Aero-tip of the day: Don't get yourself talked into anything that seems thrown together haphazardly. Aim for more professionalism that I had at the beginning of my commercial career.

FMI: Aero-Tips