Towing Part 2: NM Style

Here in New Mexico there are miles and miles of dirt roads out in the middle of nowhere. Actually, the whole state of New Mexico is out in the middle of fucking nowhere. Mostly, these roads are artifacts of various failed land developments. The best places are the ones where the roads were finished but the fences and power lines were never installed.

I own a tow rig in partnership with Brian Kurowski, a hang glider pilot, and Dave Sharp, a sailplane pilot. Dave Sharp held the world distance record for rigid wing hangies for quite a while. Sharpie Sharp is one of the most naturally talented pilots I’ve ever met. The tow rig is parked at Hangar 56 at Moriarty Municipal Airport, in Moriarty, New Mexico, which is just west of the endless dirt roads of the tow paddock. The winch currently holds over 5000 feet of Spectra line.

In 2002 my friend David Prentice took our tow rig to Zapata, Texas and used it to tow up Will Gadd for his world record paraglider distance flight of 263 miles. David set a record at Zapata that year too, 240 miles, but it didn’t stand for long. In fact David flew his record the day before Will did his. Talk about “king for a day”. So, despite it's “Mad Max meets the Beverly Hillbillies" look , our tow rig is a certified double FAI world record holder.

Our tow rig started its life around twenty years ago as an ATOL style rig that was originally built for platform launching hangies. Of course we just foot launch our paragliders, but we keep the platform part of the rig intact for the occasional old school plumber that shows up at the paddock. Platform launching is a barbaric practice that involves tethering the nose of the hang glider to a tower on the rig and then accelerating to 35 mph airspeed before releasing the tether. Needless to say, the initial climb out is pretty radical. Plumbers like it because it gets them altitude and airspeed instantly. The problem is that the launch phase is super high energy, and if anything goes wrong the speed is high and the ground is close. These days plumbers prefer dollies. At their age, who wouldn’t?