The 2016 great american aerotow

[Sinkhappens86]

From the footage, I think they flew through a rain shower.

[stevekremer]

Wow, They did not look that close in the tail view!

[Stew2]

It was raining during that tow, but not real hard... I remember that tow and departure. The tow pilot did a poor job making the last turn of the tow tight and sling-shoting the glider around the corner causing much slack in the tow line. Len jumped off and quickly was gaining on me. I banked to get out and down and apparently none to early.... It was a fun super-sonic run for the DG800 from there on out. Looking forward to the rest of the video.

[Jeff D]

Ok gang, tired of staring at the shots again. Here is the link to the album:

https://flic.kr/s/aHskCiWWZu

Enjoy!
Jeff

[stevekremer]

Excellent, thanks Jeff

[gunny11]

Wow! super pictures.

[hello82]

thanks again Jeff...always great to re-live the event through your photos! See you all in Vermont.

Matt

[hello82]

BTW, the 40 foot high-voltage lineman's pole at SKSS got a workout Friday retrieving Erich's plane. It was said they're no longer available. Not so. They're still available and still really expensive.

We purchased one for the BASS club back in the 1990's and so did SKSS -- figuring it was a legitimate club expense. They've both been worth the cost...

http://www.mitchellinstrument.com/ha...FYpkhgodl_kBGA

...also....I ended going towing and flying with scott again Tuesday at Bloomfield and had a great day of booming dry thermals, then scraped the wing tips a bit on pavement! ..we also talked about the trouble of seeing planes in totally blue skies and also perspective of tree lines, and how different they also look in photos...and then went home and flew in the park the small foamy crack...working on knife edge ...and somehow got bit by the tree because my perspective was way way off? Freaked right out, how close the tree was when the small foamy was very close I thought. Ended up going to Lowes and get a similar pole extension as Steve Pointed out above, but at at 25 ft, then added 2 - 12ft plumbers plastic pipe at the base with McGyver tape and was able to get her down...

Jeff can you eloborate from a photo perspective, why trees look so much closer in photos usually...is it just focus of the zoom lens on the much nearer plane? In reality this time I was very focused on plane I recall and then totally bit by the tree out of the blue blue sky.

[Jeff D]

Hi Matt,

Thank you for the comments on the photos. Glad people can get a feel for the event from them.

To your question on trees looking closer in photos. A lot has to do with the distance from the camera to the subject (plane) and the distance from the camera to the background (trees). If the subject is significantly closer than the background it is easy to tell the difference in size. Below is an example of this, the tow with the trees in the background. We are probably about 200' to the glider and 400' to the towplane. The glider looks closer because the appearance of size is different due to the towplane being twice as far away. Also notice how far away the trees look.



Now look at the same 2 planes further out on tow. The distance to the glider is (for speaking purposes) 1200' and the tow plane is 1400'. Not as much of a difference and the 2 planes appear close to the same size but they are still 200' apart.



It's much easier to judge closer in than far away. Same reason we have more difficulty (or I do anyway) holding tow position as you get higher and farther out because relative size change is minimal.

The other thing to point out on this is you mentally have to know the sizes of the objects to make the distance judgement.

On the subject of trees here is the same glider landing probably about the same distance away from the camera as in the second shot.



Note the relative size of the trees to the glider here vs the take off. They look bigger but thinking about the size difference I'd guess the glider is maybe just over half way to them.

Now one last twist. Check this one out:



The glider is in the slot right over the power lines right??? But this glider is probably half the size of the first one. Hmmm, not that easy.

So the further away from your subject, the background will generally look closer and / or larger relative to the subject but judging that distance difference will become more difficult.

Hope that helps.
Jeff

[hello82]

thanks for the info Jeff! very helpful...see you in Vermont

Matt